A Pilgrim’s Digression

Although this was not the first time my guild successfully cleared Karazhan, this was a first time for me. We began work on it Tuesday evening and had a really successful run that first night. No wipes. We killed all the bosses in one shot up to Illhoof, the optional satyr boss in the library. We resumed the fight Saturday night with Netherspite. I was expecting a pretty easy time of it, since the trash was basically cleared for the final three boss fights. Kara was empty except for a few Shades and Horrors, plus Prince Malchezaar and Netherspite.

Netherspite gave us fits. I think we spent a good hour and a half on him, trying and wiping, over and over. I had no problems riding the blue beam on my warlock–I just drain tanked through the hits I was taking–but I wasn’t seeing the void zones when they would open up beneath me. Finally our raid leader, Jimby, asked me if I was zoomed in to first person view.

I wasn’t in first person, but I was zoomed in pretty close. That’s how I have always played, normally. He told me I needed to zoom out as far as possible for these bosses so I can see more of the area around me. It makes sense, but had never occurred to me that something so simple could be inhibiting my playing better. It made all the difference though. Netherspite is a huge, blue dragon, and when zoomed in, one can see very little of what’s going on around the room.

Next up, we took on Prince Malchezaar. If Netherspite was frustrating, this fight was impossible, at least that night. Prince is a giant Draeneii-looking creature who, by himself, would be a pushover. But he summons Infernals who fall from the sky, landing and, while standing in one place, casting a Hellfire-like area of effect spell that forces you to move around. Where the Infernals fall is totally random, but if luck is against you, they fall in such a way as to isolate your casters from being able to cast spells on the boss, or else they fall in such a way as to hem in your tank and melee DPS, essentially forcing the healers to heal through the Hellfire. He also casts a spell called Enfeeble that takes a random two or three players and reduces their hit points to one point. He then casts a Shadow Nova after a few seconds that, if you get caught in it during the Enfeeble, will essentially ensure death. You cannot be healed during the Enfeeble. It wears off pretty quickly, though, and actually proved to be no problem at all, since as a caster I was standing at max range anyway (out of range of the Shadow Nova). Still, it is rather shocking to see your health bar drop down to one point, and to know there is nothing you can do about it.

What killed us again and again on Prince were the Infernals. They just weren’t dropping right for us. The fight is all about luck in that respect, and I could tell it was frustrating people. It was frustrating me. We were a good group. We had the tank and the DPS and the healing to take him down, but we were getting bad drops on the Infernals.

We finally gave up about eleven-thirty. We are all East coasters, most of us with families, and so we rarely play after midnight.

Then last night, it happened that most of us were online anyway, so we decided to make one final try to kill Prince. Again it seemed like we were going to be unlucky. We got him to 3% health on the first try. Second attempt we brought him down to 6%. The problem was we were getting him down in health, but people were dying to the infernals. It was getting late and people were making mistakes, too, such as not being at max range (sometimes the Infernals make that difficult though). And in one case, we just had to laugh because after all our meticulous preparation prior to starting the fight, the hunter misdirected aggro onto a healer instead of the tank. I looked up and all I see is this big blue demon charging towards the DPS/Healer group instead of towards the tank standing out there on the balcony. It was a prime “Oh shit” moment.

Finally, finally, we did get him down, though. And again it all came down to luck: the Infernals didn’t pin us down, and we didn’t lose anyone. He dropped some pretty good items, too, which was a relief because after all the time we spent on him this weekend, I think everyone expected him to drop crap. I got my Tier 4 helm token, for the Voidheart Crown. I think it’s incredibly ugly, so I will probably leave “Show Helm” unchecked in my preferences. Occasionally in PvP I see people wearing it, and to me it just gives away how well-geared you are to your opponent. I’d rather my opponents be in the dark about me and my gear.

One of the two hunters with us also got the Sunfury Bow of the Phoenix, so all in all, it was a good kill.

At this point, it was about eleven fifteen. We decided to make one shot at Nightbane, another optional boss that you have to summon. Nightbane is a fiery, skeletal dragon that has a number of abilities, but he proved somewhat easier than Prince to kill. We had a wipe the first time we tried him, though. Our pally was supposed to pick up the skeleton he drops on us so that I could AoE them with my Seed of Corruption. I waited for him to tell me he had the skeletons, and then I cut loose with the Seed. Well, he didn’t have them. Not all of them anyway. Two of them attacked and killed me, and with no one else to AoE them, the group was facing Nightbane and his skeleton minions. Wipe.

However, one of our Priests was still Soulstoned from the final Prince fight. She rezzed us and we re-grouped without having to run back from the graveyard. The Soulstone was about to expire anyway, so I stoned her again, and we tried one more time. This time we took him down hard. The pally waited an extra three seconds to make sure he had aggro on the skeletons, and it was smooth sailing. I don’t remember what dropped from Nightbane. I already had my purple for the night, so I wasn’t rolling on anything anyway.

As people were hearthing out, I took this screen capture of the flaming pile of bones that is Nightbane (clicky click on the tumbnail), and us standing around gawking. I like the imposing mountains in the distance, and I think this shows how well-designed the instance is aesthetically. Karazhan is definitely a work of art, both in terms of game art and game play. I’ve never experienced anything like it.