Well this was it, after a couple of weeks planning and panicking, it was time to see how the new group makeup and the new “Raiders” did in Kara. It was the 2nd night in Kara this week so we weren’t starting from scratch, but we were starting from Moroes, so it would be interesting to see how the evening started…

Group makeup was 2 tanks(1 druid, 1 warrior), 2 healers (1 priest, 1 shammy), 6 DPS (mix of hunters, shammy, locks and mage) - all 10 were from the new list of Raiders - ie those that have met the new criteria in terms of hp, dps, +healing etc.

I know, enough of all that - how did we get on?

Well the trash on the way to Moroes was dealt with very swiftly and easily. But then with that much DPS, it should have been easy eh? Then the first real challenge of the night - how to deal with Moroes and his 4 dinner guests with only 1 shackle? Well, easy enough - MT tanks Moroes, OT tanks 2 adds and gets hits on Moroes, nuke one of the priests and keep 1 guest shackled. We took out 3 guests before inviting Moroes to eat carpet and then disposed of the final guest. One death during this fight (yours truly!) and I’ve never seen Moroes dealt with so easily with so little fuss. Lousy loot but hey, it’s badges!

Then onwards and upwards to Opera - trash was easy once again, we motored our way up to Opera without any problems and only 1 death I think - but mages are squishy and gnomes unimportant so who cares?

Straight into Opera, none of that prancing around running off while Jar “takes one for the team” - and it would have been so much beter if our nub RL (oh yeah - me!) had read the Barnes text properly and called the right event - so instead of Wolf as I was telling everyone, it was actually Wizard of Oz. We had a great grup makeup for this event, but need to work on tactics somewhat, but that will come with practice. Anyway, 3rd attempt and boy was it a long one, Jar, Cele & Suzy finally downing the Crone after 3 manning most of it…Eternium Greathelm for Kojak (yey, cover that bald head!)…

Then the money run towards Curator and nothing we couldn’t handle. And a quick run through of tactics and Curator went down so smoothly and quickly - 2 evocations and he was dust. We had so much DPS that we let the melee guys just dps the boss - no point in them running around after the flares. Each set of flares was awesomely tanked by some seriously handsome hunter and Curator went down. T4 gloves won by Smg and resto druid stuff dissed.

Off to see Aran and teach him a lesson or two. Well it took 3 attempts to down him, but down him we did and he very kindly dropped a trinket for Arcania andyet another item to be dissed. One thing that we have to, have to, have to remember is not to move on Flame Wreaths - it really is quite simple, so why do we manage to die so often due to Flame Wreaths?!?

Off to Chess, easy trash of course, and easy Chess for easy epics Kings Defender for Kojak (lucky sob!) and Ring of Recurrence for  Daevra (who had replaced me after our first Aran attempt).

So our first night with the new system and things went pretty well I think, lots of DKP earned, some epics picked up and plenty of badges. Brush up on tactics and we’ll go from strength to strength!

- Rya

The raiders:
Tanks:
Lollipoppi - Horacio
Healers:
Meleos - Numpty - Iera
Dps
The Mage Trio:Vernin  - Sarita - Mageeca
Arcania  - Andrehunt

The raid started as usual and swiftly we entered Kara a bit before 21h server time on our way to Midnight and Attumen.

Clearing trash, some deaths though (Noobs? Night hé :p), then we came to Midnight, Horacio tanking Midnight, Poppi tanking Attumen. All seemed to go well, when suddenly a group a mobs came across the wall to bash us ? Wipe!  Fortunately SS on a priest you?d say? Bugger not! Nearly all mobs we killed previously respawned! So wipe again. We had to kill all these mobs again from the front door to Midnight and Attumen. This time they were defeated without much trouble.
Loot: Tanking Bracers for Horacio, healing gloves for Iera.

After that we obviously headed to Moroes, rather slowly, some deaths on the way… several ill-fated pulls leading to nearly wipes :p.

Anyway, we finished clearing all the mobs we had to before fighting Moroes. Unfortunately the premature death of a healer in combat led to a wipe. But we were determined to make Moroes bite the dust and he fell on our second attempt.
Loot: 2 caster items, one necklace and one cloak; first item went to Arcania, second item to Vernin.

As we were progressing slowly in the instance, the night was already almost over, but nonetheless we decided to go defeat Maiden of Virtue. Again some spectacular deaths along the way :p.

The fight with Maiden went surprisingly smoothly compared to the two previous fights  . Loot: Tanking necklace for Poppi, healing leather gloves that were dissed.

We finished the raid at this point.

Pol

Well?it was to go Gruul?s lair, and spank up some one eyed beasts, yet due to many real life commitments, numbers were too thin on the ground which is never good, however using the combined intellect of our guildies, we decided to create two teams and have a crack at karazhan

So I was grouped with a team made 40% out of druids, and that was a lot of bear arses staring at me, but I managed to avert my gaze and main tank for the evening. With my trusty bear Jaroic at my side assisting me with the tanking, what could go wrong? And for once, nothing did ? straight to attumen, and he died first time, yet the loot was not very promising, so we wondered if this was a precedent for the evenings run, two epics, both sharded, making one happy guild bank,

We moved on swiftly as many of you know I well?I maybe might possibly be a fast instance raider?maybe?so we hit the stairs, started pulling, all dandy, all easy, but wait, what is that on the floor, oh it?s Cammy?s corpse, seeing as he wasn?t in his full epixed tank, he?d decided to dish out the damage as his imposter Cammeh, fury extraordinaire, but no, he died, apparently trying to beat halo and his death tally, so we ressed him, and proceeded, then sure enough he was down again, we thought, wow two deaths, I doubt there would be a third?oh were we wrong, but back to the show, moroes died, and he died heroically, and we got some lovely loot ? it was indeed Healer night tonight, much to the pleasure of Kirelle and Faewynn, so Signet of unshakeable faith went to Kirelle, and Faewynn became the proud owner of Shadow Cloak of Dalaran

We moved on, again with Cammy and Nod dying spectacularly. Went to opera and again it was Romulus and Julianne, they died first time AGAIN, just like everything else that night, and what have we here, more healer loot?Masquerade Gown went to Fae, and Kirelle received the delicious trinket in the form of Ribbon of sacrifice, alas no Despair for Cammy. We acted pregnant and pushed on, heading to Curator, bypassed the usual trash, hitting Curators room and went berserk, we killed him first time, alas after the second evocation, but he died easily and Nod got Shalzurs beloved Staff of Infinite Mysteries for Boomkin ( even though he is Feral?) and we got well erm?a tier 4 glove for paladin rogue and shaman, and there were well erm, none of them in the raid, so good good blizzard for your loot tables, most disappointing, BUT we did not fret, and scooted to Aran, trash trash trash and more trash fell to our might

Aran?some say he is living, some say he is not quite dead?well he definitely is now, 12feet under and we are two more epics richer for the experience, that?s right, you guessed it, two more epics for our druids, Fae received an offhand Aran?s soothing sapphire, whilst Kirelle bagged his Boots of the Incorrupt

So with the night wearing on, we did what most raids would have done, people were getting tired, we were full on epics?therefore we wanted more, we headed to chess, bish bash bosh, easy epics, Battlescar boots were sharded, BUT Smg won the delicious ring of recurrence to bolster his shadow damage and crit

But it was getting late, so we decided to kill something else illhoof it was, we went to him, demanding /tar demon macros, they were made, we killed him, he dropped Fools bane for the fake Cammy ( who by now had totaled about 8 deaths, beating nod by 4) and again yep you guessed it, MORE healing gear, so gratz to Kirelle who won Heart menders ring

The all important question lingered at the end, so Cele linked dps meters and aww Nod was second to Cammy, who barely topped it, despite being dead for 90% of the raid

One of the best Kara runs I have done, and makes me proud to be a badger, fantastic team effort, exquisite healing, top notch dps, and average to poor tanking on my behalf, with fantastic bear?ing with Jaroic ?

So thanks to Smc, Cammy, Nod, Kirelle, Fae, Pie, Cake, Cele (and his trusty Brutus and Brutus junior), Jar and myself, Terranab

Healers night, they have no reason to complain ever?

-Terralis

Once upon a time there was a rogue named Xzenia, who so much wanted to do Sethekk Halls. He quickly found a healer named Firstprice, a hunter named Xesc, and a mage named Psykopyro. Time went by as the group asked all channels possible for a kind tank, but none were available. The fact that the time was well past 02:00 at night didn’t seem to make them think that the tanks might have gone to bed, tired from taking so many beatings all day.

Eventually the impatient group started clearing a little trash. The group then after a while gave up on finding a tank, and decided to just try out the instance for themselves. Massive amounts of aoe damage later and with a healer close to nervous breakdown, as well as two deaths by a squishie mage, the group reached their first goal: teh boss! The boss seemed to be no match for the fantastic four, and with a little help from a fire elemental the boss was a piece of pie (again one death by said squishie mage).

Further trash was cleared, until one room seemed to go bananas, and too many adds made Psyko’s net connection turn suicidal. The group, then consisting of three, decided that four mobs and a bird in the group ahead of them might be a little too stressful, and thus promptly ninjaed Scubasteve away from his daily activities, along with a very very tired Haló. This seemed to work very well, having two pets, a trap, and a sap at hand to handle any mobs, the groups went down.

And so, behold, the said squishie mage had returned to the life online! Scuba was keen on his daily quests, and thus Psyko once again joined this party of late night alternative instance tactic explorers.

Eventually the party, tankless, cleared the instance, to much entertainment for this shaman writing.

Not really a huge accomplishment, but hey, now it’s documented; tanks not needed to do Sethekk Halls!

- Vazzi

Hey Guys,

Been a little while coming, we’ve been a bit slacky on the website updates but, yep, you guessed it, we got the high king down.

This was done with a team that we thought we were going to have to split into two and go try ZA instead.

All I can say is congratulations guys, we really set the bar that night, really good fun, easy going and the high king went down like a bag of spuds dropped of the top a building. Some T4 stuff dropped, cant remember what else. We then had a go o the big boy himself and got him to 59%, which for our second ever attempt was excellent, We shall be farming it soon, provided we can keep getting the numbers

-Smc

I’ve not written a piece for, oh, about 5000 years, so I thought I’d knock one up for your perusal this morning. Well it gives me a break from reading Gruul strategies!

Wednesday is reset day and nub night, so our intrepid band of nubs gathered outside Karazhan once again to go and defeat the undead mobs hiding inside…come out, come out, wherever you are! Oh too scared? Ok, we’ll come in and kick your lowly undead butts!

Buffed up, Attumen fight explained and off we go…don’t think we had a single death on the way to Attumen. This scaredy-cat hunter didn’t fancy trying his hand at trapping, and with a bear tank with over 18k hp - why bother? So when we did get the pull of 5 mobs down the end - MD the blue square onto our friendly bear tank! A couple of scary moments when Attumen spawned and then when he mounted, it looked like he might run rampage - but the tanks got him under control and we duly spanked him!

Read the rest of this entry »

Epics, epics and even more epics. Did I mention epics? EEEEEEEEPICS! And where do we badgers get the most of our epics? That’s right, Karazhan! And last night we all summoned in, buffed up and peeked inside to see what the Prince had to offer. It was a nice visit, we had a rather good time aswell and the big bitch was down at around 3% when he decided to drop a fecking infernal right on our heads, causing a wipe. Nobody could believe what had just happened, but as badgers we had no choice but to buff back up and get back in! And on our third try we showed him just what the badgers are all about, we smacked him silly and while he fell to the ground he lost [Helm of the Fallen Defender] to Scave, Andrehunt got [Sunfury Bow of the Phoenix] while I picked up [Adornment of Stolen Souls] with Shalzur and after a quick reminder so everyone got their 3 [Badge of Justice] we went back down the stairs to say hello to Netherspite.

But that big dead dragon seemed to have some problem with dying all over again for some strange reason, things just weren’t working like they should for the fight and after 5 wipes going at between 20 and 75% we decided it was best to just give up and visit Illhoof instead! Without warlocks, again. But hey, when you’ve got two quality mages to take care of the aoe and swap it out, there’s really no problem to it! In the end we smacked him silly and he had no choice but to leave some epics behind. Altares alt Tessa (confused? I know I am) picked up [The Lightning Capacitor], Andre got his second epic when Vazzi and Halo passed on [Girdle of the Prowler] while the rest of us got another 2[Badge of Justice] for our evergrowing collection!

At that point we had respawns all the way up to netherspite, so we decided to just call it a night and go to bed with the epics we got.

Last night might not have been our best night in Kara kill or lootwise, but I know for sure that I had a good, fun time and in the end that’s what it’s all about, is it not? That and the bloody epics, of course.

A happy badger
- Shalz

So, Off to zul’aman we went,

Started off clearing the trash easy enough, got to those nasty guys on the bears, after a few wipes and a rejig of who was doing what, they didn’t pose much of a problem.

Our first 3 tries on the bear god were a bit shaky, Alteres was taking a pounding from the cleave that the he dishes out, so we swapped him around for a bit of extra healing and dps, The final attempt was textbook everyone on full health at the end and we also picked up a quest map and a new 20 slot back, which is too the right of the bear god, Lootz were [Fury of the Ursine] , Which shalz ninja’d from me as we can all clearly see that its shadow priest loot

Next onto the eagle boss, which meant we had to run the gauntlet, much like AQ20 and the second boss .. All I can say is it didn’t cause much of a problem, a few of us had to run back in but we were fine

The eagle boss is pretty simple, Its simply a case of DPS DPS DPS, When it rains,  run into the middle and stand on the tank, when the electricity stops run back out DPS DPS DPS, Easy huh, We didn’t quite get it but I think next time were on for a little extra loot

Great run guys,  Had an excellent time, Tanking healing an DPS was top notch, Look forward to the next one,

-Smc

Once again the badgers set foot in Karazhan, the mighty tower in deadwind pass. And after wed’s noob-team spent their time well, all we had to do was get the invites sorted and buffs up before we walked in the back door and said hello to Nightbane. 9 mins and 37 seconds after we went into combat he was lying on the floor, even more dead than when we came. We tipped our hats and everyone got two [Badge of Justice] while Terra got [Ironstriders of Urgency] and Cammy was supposed to get [Panzar'Thar Breastplate] untill Halo managed to give it to himself, resulting in his brand new nickname; ninjadieguy! Nah, but I’m gonna keep it serious for a second here. Halo was feeling bad about it all night and was talking to several GM’s I believe, in the end they fixed it and the breastplate ended up in Cammy’s mailbox! Everyonemakes mistakes Halo, and the 500 gold fee I set for your next ml session had nothing to do with that at all!

But the raid has to push on and after clearing the trash we took a few steps forward to engage Shade of Aran, without a single warlock to keep those elementals busy! But Halo came up with the idea that all ranged dps would switch to elementals once they spawned and with me finding the time to put a mark on my current target, we burned them down in true badgerstyle with Aran following just behind as he presented Terralis with [Drape of the Dark Reavers] and Riddon had the nerve to steal my [Mantle of the Mind Flayer]! But atleast we all got two [Badge of Justice] each for our collection before we moved on to play some chess with his son. And do I really have to explain how that went? The purdy [Bladed Shoulderpads of the Merciless] got turned into two [Void Crystal] and Rik picked up [Legplates of the Innocent]! The chest was ripped open 9 more times to award us all with two more [Badge of Justice] and we took the fight to the top of the tower and the big bad prince!

Now, this is one fight I do not enjoy. It’s all based on a bit of luck with those damn infernals, but last night we badgers did show that we are capable of turning the whole fight around and stand victorious! Problems started with a drop near the tanks, no biggie. We just moved him to the other side and…crap, another one on the tanks, well. All the way back to the entrance it is. And it was there he fell, his body covered in burn marks and bleeding wounds, and left Sups with both [Helm of the Fallen Defender] and [Light's Justice] while Suzy got [Jade Ring of the Everliving] and the rest of us were left with 3 [Badge of Justice].

But there were still two bosses alive, and we were not about to stop there! We backtracked to Netherspite and had a very good first try that ended with a wipe at 40%. A little rebuffing and talking later we decided to run back in and give him another go. And with the well-oiled badgermachine running on high gear he really had no chance and it didn’t take long untill he as face down on the floor, handing over [Spiteblade] to the ever so lucky Terra and [Uni-Mind Headdress] got stuffed in the guild bank as two more [Void Crystal], and guess what the rest of us got? That’s right, more [Badge of Justice]!

It was getting late at this time, but only Illhoof was left standing between the badgers clearing Karazhan in two nights and there was no way we were giving up! And I know what you’re thinking, Illhoof without warlocks? What has Shalzur been smoking now? But we have done it before and we decided to give it another try, only to wipe at 15%. So when Lolli had to leave us we called in Lemonhead to supply some seed of corruption and that was really all that was needed. Illhoof and his imps had no chance as we poured on our dps and they all went down easy as pie, not that pie is easy, but you know. Yeh, you know. We all picked up our two [Badge of Justice] and [Girdle of the Prowler] went to Cele while I picked up [The Lightning Capacitor] and danced around until Riddon made a portal so everyone could park their bum in Shattrath City before going to bed.

A very good night to be a badger, and a easy night to take charge, even without a very functional microphone. Big thanks to everyone who came along, you all did a great job!

- Shalz

OK  - been asked to do a write up of last nights Kara run, so here goes and Gawd help you.

Team was assembled in pretty short order led by Agra and the one no-show was quickly replaced with Lemon who was ready and waiting on the sidelines. First target was the Shade of Aran so everyone was quickly in the back door (Fnar Fnar) and ready at the end of the Curators menagerie.

Pretty standard stuff to start - Cammy pulling, Halo’s fire totem doing the same, we cut our way through the library and up the slope into the bit that looks like Hogwarts with all the open walkways, until we were outside Mr Aran’s door. We let ourselves in as it was open and recced up before the inevitable dance of doom. First attempt went smoothly until round 20% and we had a mover and shaker during Flamewreath - wipe.

No names, but its a yellow Citrus fruit and grows on trees:D.

Anyway lesson learned we ran back in and had another go - this time everyone lived all the way thro and Aran finally got to rest in Peace after a short 3 mins 40 sec fight. Perhaps now he will have time to read all those books.

 Next target was the Prince - getting to him wasnt all that difficult as chess had been cleared last week, the most difficult thing seemed to be for everyone to negotiate the spiral staircase.

 Prince strangely didn’t seem all that happy to see us and insisted on bringing his boring fire infernal freinds to dinner. One of said infernals did for us on first attempt when it cut the healers and casters off from the melee guys - inevitable wipefest.  Second attempt he went down like a tin bath full of holes - excellent teamwork with that added bit of luck needed for his royal highness.

Onto Illhoof the demon and his imp mate ( He doesnt get out much and the imp makes a lovely bread and butter pudding I’ve heard ). Once everyone had been summoned from various parts of the castle having got lost/fell down etc., we charged in and started blasting. Changed the tactics slightly this time and killed the imp when he spawned every time - we found it easier to do this and stop him constantly interupting the casters and healers. Illhoof went down first time - and to be honest felt pretty easy - but the fact we had 2 locks on team made it that way with their lovely seeds of corruption killing the mass imp spawns .

 Lolli had to leave at this point to get her beauty sleep for an early start looking in the job market for voice over work (ask her :P) and replacements were advertised for in guild - Pyro duly volunteered and was zapped into Kara for our last target of the evening - Netherspite the Dragon.

 I think this is the most technical fight of the lot in Kara but also the most interesting due to the different phases it goes through and having to adapt to the situation on the fly - and Badgers are getting better at  this all the time. Teams for the Beams were sorted and the fight explained for the first timers on that boss - Katlyn and Pyro.

Undoubtedly the best fight of the night in my opinion - Dragon pwnd first time with great team work displayed by all. Beams were covered pretty constantly by people and Agra’s instuctions being followed immediately meant we were victorious.

 So there we go - another night in the haunted castle, 4 more bosses Badgerised and the guild that little bit better equipped to face the next steps of Zul Aman, Grull and beyond.

 Well done Badgers

 Riddon (don’t call me Hunnybun) the ancient