Archive for the ‘Kara’ Category

Well last night I took my shiny new talents, the awesomeness that is Orthus, and we went into Kara for a bit of fun. We didn’t really know what to expect. I was pretty sure my build was going to work, and provide a lot of DPS – but this was the first real good look at how the other classes were shaping up.

I knew Orthus was going to piss some people off, but man did he do such a good job of it. For those who haven’t heard yet the orange core hounds from MC are a little bit different from the green or white ones. These ones BURN. So not only is the whole room shaking, but you also have the sounds of a good fire burning the whole time. I can’t wait for a 25 man

The only problem was the raid nerf. Everything was so damn easy, we were not able to really put anything to the test. Every boss fight only lasted 2 minutes. I could not get any good gauge on Aspect of the Viper and mana regen, as the fight was over before I got below 80%. At one point, I was doing 2200 DPS on Illhoof, but that was only because of his debuff when Kil’rek dies. Maiden took a grand total of 51 seconds. Everything was just crazy.

What I did find out was how awesome raid buffs are now. Shaman totems actually help us Hunters out. Pally buffs are very different – no salvation might make you worry – but our warrior tank was getting 1500 TPS while the rest of us were getting around 700-900 TPS. Threat is no longer a problem. Pallys have crazy DPS, which is good to see, and their CC works just like a Priests shackle. The calls from BlizzCon of “don’t nerf me bro” are understandable, but as I write this they have already been hot fixed, with more changes to come.

In terms of numbers, raid buffs and the new talents had a huge impact on things. I was getting 5% extra crit from raid buffs, and I went from 1987 AP to 2770 AP at one stage. My DPS before the patch was around 900 on trash and on boss fights just over 1k. Now I am doing 1100 DPS on trash and 1500 DPS on boss fights.

Tonight we are hoping to get into ZA to give something a bit harder a go. Hopefully this will give me a better understanding of how the Hunter class is shaping up. But so far I am very happy with everything to do with a Hunter.

So we only had nine for the upper part of Kara. What ever would we do? Well, take a lvl 68 holy pally of course! Wouldn’t you? But that’s not the good part, oh no.

What made it even more fun, was when on the guilds first shot at NightBane, our two main dps go down at 50% (stupid Mages – some people say its lucky to have Mages die, so they gave us double the amount). What do you do at this point… well, as a hunter, I was running for the door about to FD… but why not stay and give it a go any way. That’s just what we did, with only 4 dps, 1 tank, 2 heals, plus our 68 holy pally – who was on heals.

A few minutes later we were still up – then over Vent; “We could actually do this if we have enough mana and there is no enrage timer.” Who would have thought we would need to know that? One of our lucky Mages piped up (after alt-tabing to find out); “umm I don’t think so”, so on we pressed.

Guess what? 13 minutes after the fight began, it was over. That’s right, we downed NightBane. No one knows how our mana lasted that long, but it did. Might I say that our healers are awesome – our 3 healers that is – well done guys, that was a big effort on your part (even Rusty was still alive).

So the Quantum Butterflies are now 11/12 in Karazhan in just 2 weeks. ZA next week anyone?

Yes, well, I know I’m late but hey, I have had lots to do this week… well… not really, I have just put it off. Well, here goes.

The second half of Kara was not like the first…

First up on the list was Aran. Key thing we learnt from this fight – don’t move during flame wreath. Yes, I was guilty of moving during it once. I really like this fight, because as a hunter there are a few things we actually have to do; we have to move, move well, and don’t move during flame wreath. It took us a little while to get the hang of it, but after about 5 wipes he went down pretty fast.

Prince went down without to much of a fuss, except for a few wipes where we had unlucky Infernal spawns – but hey, you can’t help that now can you. Chess was also done, of course. Illhoof didn’t put up much of a fight at all, going down on first shot.

Netherspite on the other hand, was far from a good fight. We were all pretty tired by this stage, and not getting anywhere after 2 wipes, we called it a night.

So, it was not as good as the first half, but we are still learning the fights, and next week is another week. We didn’t even get to Nightbane, but he will keep untill next week.

Some good drops came up as well. Nothing for me, but that’s ok, I was just loving being a part of the raid and wiping time after time. Yes, I said it – I loved the wipes too. Maybe I will write on this later.

Thats right – a few nights ago, I walk into Kara for the first time. This was not only my first time, but also the first time we – the Quantum Butterflies – had put together a full Kara team. Only half of us were first times, the rest had been rolling with another guild every week and were mostly T4 with some T5 gear.

I could hardly contain myself. I had been working towards this for way too long. I had spent the last few days farming mats for food and buying elixirs. I had done everything I could to prepare myself… but even so, on the first pull I had no idea what was going on. There were so many people. Now don’t think that I hadn’t run any 5-mans before because I had. I had been running at least 1-2 a day for the past 4 weeks, trying to gear myself.

I don’t think any amount of time or effort put into reading about the boss fights, or running 5-mans, could fully prepare you for the coordinated chaos that is a Raid.

We were moving though the pulls like mad men, with the command from the main tank to “hurry up and only drink when I drink.” I was still trying to work out what was going on when I was asked to trap! The marks went up and I was trying to get over the fact that they wanted me to trap, when the MT pulled. I fumbled my way though it and managed somehow to pull off a chain trap, and maintain some sort of dps on the kill order.

It took a long time for things to settle down and for me to get my head back in the game. We one shotted everything, with only one wipe on trash before Curator. We then all laughed it off and just went right ahead and put down Curator. Which we decided was enough for one night on our first guild run of Kara. What can ya say really, other than what a run it was.

We were not expecting much going in, as a lot of us were first timers. I have to give a big thanks to the more experienced guys who made the run go as smoothly as it did.

I will make sure to let you all know on how the second half of Kara goes, just as soon as we decide on a date.

To make it even better, Legacy dropped. Can you say OMG