Karazhan Raid - IMPT pls read!

[Aristine]

Hi Shield members,

In order to move forward as a guild, I have the intention for our guild to form one team to try Karazhan again in 2 months time - our targetted date 1st or 2nd week of October. If it is successful, we will have Kara on each saturday/sunday afternoon.

In order to prepare for Karazhan, it is recommended for the current members to do the following:-

1) Build up your gear by doing more Heroic runs
2) Do some enchants to your gear
3) Download the raid add-on (please see our official website for recommended resources)
4) Buy a microphone/headset and start using our vent (please get the password from ross)

In preparation for this, we will start recruiting members for serious Kara raiding.
Based on our current active members, we will require one healer (preferably priest), 1 shadow priest and 1 mage.

For gear runs, we will carry out scheduled runs everyday (GMT+8 - 7 or 8pm to 11pm) to normal and heroic instances. For members who have not obtained any heroic keys, try to do more pug (if the rest are not online) or to join our guild runs.

Pls indicate your instance preference in this forum or at the guild calender.

[Aristine]

Do read on as this will be the 1st boss we have to encounter.
Respawns will activate every 25min so we have to kill all the mobs before the boss FAST before the next respawn.

Attumen (1st boss of Karazhan - also deemed as a gear check)

Basic Melee: 1.6k - 2.1k on tank, 8k on cloth. He can, and should, be disarmed.
Immune to taunt and bleed.
Shadow Cleave: Cleave attack for around 4k. Range is 5 yards, anyone but tanks should be outside this.
Intangible Presence: And AoE curse cast every 30 seconds that reduces chance to hit with melee and ranged attacks and spells by 50%. Can be removed by mages and druids.
Mount Up: When either Attumen or Midnight are at 25% he will mount up, both turning into one boss with the higher hp percentage of both.
Berserker Charge: : After Attumen is mounted, he periodically does a charge. This does over 6k on cloth, and causes a knockdown. Note this charge has a minimum range of 8 yards, so it can be avoided by standing close enough to him (watch the 5 yard cleave though).


Midnight

Basic Melee: Around 1.8 k damage
Immune to taunt and bleed.
Strategies
At the start, Midnight is alone. When she's at 95%, her master Attumen is summoned, right at Midnight's spot. When either reaches 25% health, Attumen mounts and gains the Charge ability.

Preparation
Clear the whole area, because all trash mobs will come when you pull Attumen, save for the five next to the blacksmith. Trash has a 25-minute respawn, so a little speed is required during the clearing phase. Respawns will not happen during the boss fight.

Tanking
One tank should start the encounter by pulling and tanking Midnight. Your off tank (preferably one that can disarm) will be waiting between your group and Midnight. When Attumen spawns, he should immediately be picked up by this tank and drawn away so that Attumen's cleave doesn't hit the Midnight tank. One effective way to do this is to activate mob health bars (default keybind V) and Thunderclap immediately upon seeing Attumen's healthbar appear. Follow with a Demoralizing Shout then and a Disarm, as quickly as possible, and have a hunter misdirect Attumen onto his tank. A Paladin tank can use consecrate and exorcism to pick up Attumen as soon as he spawns (level 1 or 2 Consecrate left on ground under Midnight). Disarming Attumen will reduce his DPS by about 60%, at which point he'll be less damaging than Midnight. Also, a warrior can use Spell Reflection before Attumen applies the curse, which is triggered every thirty seconds.

Midnight should be tanked well away from the raid. Tanking her where she stands is preferred.

Charging
When either horse or rider are at 25% health, Attumen will mount. Aggro will be wiped, and if he is below Midnight's health, Attumen will be healed up to the horse's percentage. Since aggro is reset when he mounts, it's a good idea for the tank (if a warrior) to use Shield Wall at that time, to give the healers some slack. This will allow the warrior to build threat again, without requiring significant heals. In the case of a paladin tank a quick shot of Exorcism and judging Righteousness should allow DPS to come in with very little gap for threat generation.

The only difference after mounting is the additional charge ability. It is not entirely clear how the targeting of the charge works. One theory says that it hits the furthest person who has no aggro, so that it would be advisable to put a plate / mail user at the back of the raid. The other theory is that the charges are either random or target the nearest non-melee target, thus the off-tank should be about 8 yards from the boss.

Keep in mind that he can and sometimes will use his shadowcleave while moving back to the MT after a charge.

The best way to avoid damage to the raid is by having the tank turn Attumen around, and having everyone in the raid stand directly behind him between 6 and 7 yards away (outside cleave range, but too close for the charge).

DPS
Midnight should be focused on first. It is possible to switch DPS to Attumen when Midnight gets down to about 30%, so that Attumen has low health when he mounts up. This shortens the length of the phase where he can charge, although it requires tanking Midnight for that much longer.

Healers
Healers should keep everybody's health topped off through the whole fight, especially in Phase 2, because the charge can hit anybody if the group is not properly oriented. Charge victims should bandage to lessen the healer load.

Curse
Mages and Druids should focus on removing the debuff from everyone.

If there's a warlock in the raid, Curse of Weakness could be used on both Attumen and Midnight. This reduces their attack power by up to 350. However, it does not stack with Demoralizing Shout and prevents the warlock from using a different curse. If a warrior is present, using curse of weakness will in effect be a waste of demoralizing shout.

Post Fight
Clear the mobs to the quest NPC to the left of the corral where Midnight was tanked. This will allow members in your party who are at least Honored with The Violet Eye to repair and buy recipes.

Alternate Strat
A few key changes have us defeating this boss with ease, even with as few as 7 people.

Midnight is not tanked "where she stands". Instead, she is pulled via gun and moved in front of the cart, to the left of where the cart tongue lies against the ground. DPS holds off initially.
Attumen tank does a little white damage to gain rage. During this time he makes sure he is seeing Midnight's health bar via nameplates ("V" by default). Once he reaches 30 rage +, he presses ESCAPE to untarget Midnight and stands there.
DPS is called half-in for midnight.
Attumen spawns quickly after DPS is engaged, the offtank will see Attumen spawn right beside Midnight (because of his nameplate) and immediately activate his Bloodrage, generating rage-related threat, then shield bash. In the event Attumen didn't go after him right away (should not happen) he can intervene Attumen and pick him up.
Attumen tank moves Attumen over to the wall where the 5-person pull was before Midnight was pulled, but in full line-of-sight of the rest of the raid.
Attumen tank immediately uses disarm on Attumen and Spell Reflection. In fact. if the tank uses Spell Reflect the instant it is up, every time it is up, he will reflect 100% of Attumen's debuffs back to Attumen. (Not so reliable in phase III). In the event the tank gets a debuff, a mage or druid dispels it.
DPS group 2 starts on Attumen. This means one half is DPSing Midnight and one half Attumen. The ideal situation is to bring their life down together at the same time. If this proves too difficult, all DPS can be assigned to midnight, Phase III will just last longer.
When Attumen mounts (Phase III) a tank immediately shield slams and uses their Bloodrage again. (Generating rage generates threat.)
All DPS and the other tank moves to the rear of the horse and starts DPS, but white-damage only until the tank calls for all-in.
At this time, all casters move right behind the horse too. Most especially Healers. In melee range. (But continuing to heal of course)
The only people at range are hunters unless there is no hunter, then the other tank goes out. If no one is at range, Attumen will sometimes whack a healer with melee instead, which is a harder hit than his charge, so leave at least one person at range. That person is effectively a "charge tank" and hunters fill this role with ease.
Another alternate strategy is to use a moderately well geared Paladin to AOE tank both Attumen and Midnight. With the Improved Holy Shield talent and sufficient avoidance gear, the Paladin should not take crushing blows and so can easily be healed through both mobs, particularly if another party member can disarm Attumen. This allows the OT to DPS and makes the kill faster.

[Aristine]

Okay i summarise on our Kara team A:

Tank: 1 Prot warrior (Yuu), 1 Bear druid(Yach) /Warrior (did or kai)
Dps: - Warlock - Ross, Kio / luc /ang
Dps: - Hunter - Val
Dps: - Mage - Phi
Dps: - Warrior (Did), Warrior (Kai) / Cat druid (yach) / Akii (if he is not playing priest)
Healer: Holy Pally (Aris), Priest (Tif) - current L68

If we have a full fledge Holy priest now, our team will be ready to fly..

It will be beneficial if we can recruit the following classes for our kara run:-

1) 1 x Shadow Priest
2) 1 x Holy Priest OR 1x rogue (prefer Holy priest so akii can play his rogue)

In the meantime, we will still prefer more Tanks and healers so that we can probably build the 3rd instance team / 2nd Kara group (or reserves) soon.

[Aristine]

YESH! Last Sunday we went to Karazhan after we gotten another healer.

The following members have attended:

1) Aristine
2) Ross
3) Yuuzu
4) Yach
5) Didak
6) Kio
7) Val
8) Tink
9) Phil
10) Mara

We have down Attumen in 1st try. We tried Moroes and servant quarters too.

Coming sunday we will have Karazhan raid at the same time. Please indicate your attendance to Aristine.

[Aristine]

Last sunday the following members attended the kara raid:-

1) Aristine
2) Ross
3) Yuuzu
4) Yach
5) Kio
6) Phil
7) Tiffie

[Aristine]

This coming friday, we are proposing our next kara run.

The following members have confirmed their attendance:-

1) Aristine
2) Ross
3) Yuuzu
4) Yach
5) Didak
6) Kio
7) Tink
8) Tiffie

Pending confirmation from Phil, Val, Mc & Kaino.

[Aristine]

Please note on the new looting system for our Kara raid. Please see annoucements of our forum.

We are implementing the following rules for our raid runs:-

1) Our scheduled run is on sunday otherwise stated by GM. GM will send out raid invites on Monday through mail for members who have not RSVP. If any members wish to attend the raid but not included in the invite list, he may approached the GM for invites.

2) RSVP to GM for confirmed attendance. Final confirmation of the raid will be informed to everyone at least 1 day before the raid.

3) Punctuality is IMPT. We will not wait for late comers once we have gather enough attendance.It is recommended that you login at least 30mins before the raid run so as not to miss the run. If you are late and miss the run, you will be place on the waiting list (for anyone who leave the raid).

4) Do not run instances or do long quests before raid run.

5) Read up raid bosses before attending the raid. The GM or raid leader will not guide everyone on raid boss information. It is recommended that you take initative to gear up for the raid boss of each run.

6) Install your add-ons (if any) before days before the raid. Do not try your new add-on on raid. KLH threat meter add-on is a must for all raid players. Other add-on such as CT Raid, damage meters, healbot(healers) are recommended.

7) Do your repairs, purchase your potions and water/ food etc before the run.

8) The points system shall applies for our kara raid. Looting will be on master loot and will be allocated according to our points system.