Weekend Part 2 - Jezzibael's Night Out

Weekend Part 2 (13 Sep) - Jezzibael's Night Out

Late sunday afternoon (after the football games) JB was in game getting some elixirs made. There was the usual chatter on the trade channel and JB paid little attention to it. She was about to log off, when something caught her eye. A possible dungeon run.

Hmm, JB wondered. I wonder? she said to herself. Then another thought struck her. Isn't there an attunement required for that place? JB took a peek and learned that there used to be an attunement, but it's now optional. Well, then JB could go on the proposed run if she wanted. At least she could let them know she was interested.

In the latest trade chat post, the organizer of the run said he was looking for two healers and one more DPS. Now or never, JB told herself, and sent off a /whisper: "level 73 elemental shaman avail if you still need DPS."

A few moments later JB got an invite. JB packed up her gear, cleared a few things out of her bags to make room for (hopefully) some dungeon goodies, and took flight from the Aldor Inn at Shattrath. Her first stop would be Orgrimmar, and then by zeppelin to Stanglethorn Vale, and then another flight to Swamp of Sorrows. From there JB would travel by mount to her destination.

Figured it out, yet? JB can be a tease. JB had been invited to Karazhan.

Two things one should know:
(1) JB has never done a dungeon with anyone other than her immediate family of toons and guildies. JB has never, ever, done a dungeon at anywhere near her own level, where dying was an actual possibility; it was always to help lower levels get something they needed. So this was virgin territory for her.

(2) Wildshard is a veteran of Karazhan (Kara for short). He's done more runs in there than he can count. But there was a time when he could only dream of getting into Kara. The attunement quest chain was brutally long, and it took real life months before Wild finally earned entrance to what was the top tier ten man dungeon in the game at the time. Going through those doors was a huge event for the max level 70 druid. Thinking back on it might even bring a tear to his eye.

SO HOW DARE THEY MAKE THE ATTUNEMENT OPTIONAL! Wild roared when he heard.

Now you know why Wild hates JB right now. A few days without seeing his elixirs from JB showing up in the mail will likely change his mind. Plus, unless he relents, JB won't tell him all the wonderful details of the run.

So you'll hear it here first - right now.

Kara. Perhaps Wild's favorite dungeon. It is a ten man dungeon rated for level 70. Although level 68s and above could enter, in Wild's day no one under 70 would have gotten an invite as it would have been too tough. There are twelve encounters, each with their own unique challenges. There are tons of trash mobs to fight or sneak past. It's located in Deadwind Pass to the North of the Swamp of Sorrows. JB arrived on her mount and stared in wonder at the tall, narrow, black castle rising from a town of ghostly undead. A huge door of thick steel barred the entrance. There was no longer an attunement, but someone still had to have a key to open it.

Someone did. We entered.

The Proof:


JB was in Kara. I couldn't believe it. We had a full group of ten. Two were level 80s, including a paladin who swore he could solo the place. A level 76 resto druid would be healing, and the rest of us ranged in level from 68-73.

There were maybe three of us who had some experience with Kara, and of those only JB remembered her way around (by way of Wild), which had to be a first for Wild's directionally challenged family.

After the mass slaughter of the initial trash and the first boss, however, few people wanted to listen to directions or strategy. We were a mob ourselves.

Still, the Boss hunter Attuman and his horse Midnight fell to our mob rather easily. JB would have liked for targets to be marked to help with her still rookie elemental spec, but that wasn't done. JB hoped she could target off of the main tank, but most of time there was really no one tanking, since everyone just rushed in and started killing things. Other than the healer, JB, and a mage, the rest were melee types, which included four death knights.

Players died, and the healer and JB did all of the rezzing after the fights, even though there were two paladins with us as well. JB was the only shaman, so I got to play with totems quite a bit, and hitting the shaman's big combat buff, Bloodlust, was very cool.

We made our round-a-bout way to Moroes, finding the second boss almost by accident. Moroes has four elite guests with him, standing on a low dais just out of aggro range from the entrance. A huge table heavily laden with food separated us from the dais. The edges of the room were full of mobs. The actual strategy calls for clearing all the mobs first. Moroes is then tanked and pulled out of the fray while the guests are targeted and killed. Moroes is always last or second to last to be killed.

We still had a third of the room full of trash mobs when the tank targeted Moroes. Moroes and the four guests charged us. JB, still learning this tab-targeting thingy, targeted the healer boss quite by accident, although that was the one we needed dead first. JB was the only one hitting her, however, and the boss lit into little 'ole JB. Surprisingly, JB wss able to heal through the damage and still pop shocks and lightning bolts on her until others joined in and pulled her away.

It was a rabble fighting a rabble. Three died (all of the under 70s I think) but we killed everything in the room. JB picked up a mail healing belt that she figured out later wasn't quite as good as the one she was already wearing. Oh well, she was the only mail wearer in the group.

We made a couple of wrong turns getting to the Maiden, the third boss. JB and the mage found ourselves both going in the right direction (with the others belatedly catching up). We struck up a conversation in whispers, wondering how anyone in this raid ever got to the levels they were at. Obviously not by running raids.

The strategy for Maiden - oh, never mind. The tank pulled her and we all just piled on. It was a little shocking how easily we killed her. She has some nasty AoE's and a Silence, but the ten of us just overwhelmed the giant. Again, a couple of raiders died, more from carelessness than anything else.

Raiders rushed off after the boss kill, aggroing things in three different directions while the raid leader was trying to distribute loot. JB missed the loot roll, and when I scrolled back through my chat log to check what had dropped JB winced at what I found. JB hesitates to say this, since Wild will go berserk a second time, but [Shard of the Virtuous] dropped. This main hand mace was often the only reason some raiders came to Kara. It only dropped from the Maiden, and only rarely even then. For a level 70 it was the best healing weapon in the game at the time. Even now it would be an upgrade to JB's current weapon, although not for very long once JB levelled. Having it, though, would have been incredibly cool. It took Wild weeks and weeks and weeks of Kara runs before he won a roll for it. He wore that mace a long, long time.

The master looter for the raid was also pretty distracted, and the mace went by accident to a death knight. Healers and even casters should die a little inside, knowing that. DKs don't need it, can't use it, can't even sell it other than to vendor it. But he had it and wouldn't let it go. What a shame.

We found our way to the Opera Event, aggroing things willy nilly and then slaughtering them. There are several encounters possible for the Opera Event - this night, it was the Wizard of Oz. Dorothy and her Yellow Brick Road companions lined up in front of us as the curtains rose on the stage, and JB thought about the strategies Wild had learned. Oh, what the hell, JB thought, and opened up on Dorothy. We killed Dorothy and her dog, the Tinman, the Scarecrow, and the Lion, and when the Wicked Witch turned up we killed her, too.

After that, there was just no stopping us - except they didn't know where to go next. So, the mage and JB led them backstage and on toward the next boss. There was an easier way, but Wild's Kara group always took the longer route because there was gold to be had that way, and I could no longer remember the short route.

We bumbled our way to the Curator, a large mechanical arcane guardian who struts up and down a long hallway. That hallway is full of pretty tough mobs, and even veteran groups lose raiders just on the trash mobs. Mobs are pulled in small groups of 1-3 from the hallway into a small antechamber to be killed. We did none of that. We killed the mobs closest to us, and then raiders starting rushing into the hallway after the rest of the mobs. It was only a few seconds later that Curator stomped down the hall and joined us.

I thought we were all going to die. There were too many trash mobs still about so JB focused on downing them, self healing when needed. The druid healer was plenty busy with the melee on Curator. There were a dozen things we should have been doing; instead, it was brute force and our health and mana pool vs his. Half the raid died, but we turned out Curator's lights.

JB whispered the mage, "we took on both the mobs AND Curator at the same time!"

"Yea," he whispered back, "I thought we were going to wipe."

We moved on, but it seemed the mage had seen enough. Without saying a word to the raid, he left the raid and hearthed out of Kara.

"Who am I going to talk to now?" I whispered him.

"lol," he replied. Then, "I just couldn't do it that way. Not when I know how it's supposed to be done."

JB stayed, but the mage's departure started an exodus. By the time we got to Illhoof, we had only seven in the raid. Without even slowing to talk about it, the level 80 pally waded in and we followed.

Illhoof has a companion, Kil'rek. Killing Kil'rek increases the damage done to Illhoof, until Kil'rek respawns. Keep killing him in order to kill Illhoof faster. Only JB seemed aware of this, and single-handedly brought down Kil'rek the first time. Two more raiders left the raid in the middle of the fight, including our tank. Cowards! We fought on.

JB was running out of mana, and had already used a potion. The mana regen totem could only do so much. Kil'rek had respawned and JB had him down to about 10% but had to wait several seconds to recharge mana for each blast of a lightning bolt. Two of the five remaining raiders were dead, and JB found herself pulled to Illhoof and into his Chains. Wild must not have mentioned that part. JB's health began to drop as the chains choked the life out of her. Someone had to break the chains to free JB or she would die. The two other surviving raiders were busy trying to kill Illhoof. JB died.

JB timed it as best she could, reincarnating herself (as only a shaman can) and trying to gain back enough health and mana to rejoin the fight which still raged around her. It was no good, though, as JB was quickly Chained a second time and died again. Two more raiders left the raid, leaving just three.

The other raider died, leaving only the level 80 pally - the one who swore he could solo Kara. Here was his chance.

JB did not think three raiders would be enough to go deeper into Kara, as the bosses get trickier and there are fewer of us to pick on. I told them I was leaving, and released my corpse so I could run back. When I got back and rezzed, though, JB found herself stuck between the outer door and the inner, unable to come inside and with no key to unlock the outer door. JB then noticed that the 80 pally was still alive in there.

"Are you still in combat?" I asked in raid chat. The dead raider that was still in the chamber answered.

"Yes, he is, he's still fighting Illhoof. He said he could solo him." The inner door would not open as long as we remained in combat.

Fascinated, JB watched the pally's health and mana bar for some time. He was good, I'll give him that. He wouldn't kill Illhoof before the Boss Enraged, though, I was pretty sure of that. And I didn't think the pally could long survive 7k damage fire bolt spams once that happened.

JB didn't want to see it. She left the raid and hearthed back to the Aldor Inn. JB would rather remember that pally soling Illhoof than think of him falling to the Boss's Enrage. And for all JB knows, that pally is still in there fighting Illhoof, refusing to give up.

JB's xp went from 55% to 58% of the way to level 74. That's less xp than she gets for a thirty minute run through the Isle of Kel'danas, but it was better than nothing.

JB's DPS was not very impressive, but then she only has +743 spell power. Out of 8 raiders doing DPS:

#1: DK, 1922 dps
#2: DK, 1359 dps
#3: Mage, 1344 dps
#4: DK, 794 dps
#5: JB, 659 DPS

For her first ever raid I suppose she did ok. And she certainly had a lot of fun.