Karazhan

Instance Maps

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By Mottie By Dragofix

Ideal Group Setup

You will need an off-tank that can do damage, as some fights require only one tank. I can recommend to bring a feral druid, as he can also heal on Maiden if necessary. You will need spell interrupts for Shade of Aran, so make sure you bring atleast three players who are able to do this, and a warlock is also very useful to banish one add, and fear another one. Fear ward is very useful for Nightbane unless your tank has good enough gear to go zerker stance and use berserker rage (Nightbane does heavy damage). On Maiden of Virtue you can only use three players in melee; one tank and 2 DPS, so it's good to not bring too many melee people. For Moroes you will need two shackles, and consequently two priests, as he has 4 adds. On Illhoof you'll need good AoE (a mage) and a warlock for Seed of Corruption. Of course you can always improvise, these are just advice for the ideal group, to maximize your chances of killing the bosses unless you haven't done so already.

2 tanks, 3 healers, 5 DPS (preferrably 3 or more ranged).

Example setup;

1 Protection Warrior
1 Feral druid (Off-tank and DPS/heal on the fights which requires only 1 tank)
1 Priest, healing
1 Paladin, healing
1 Shaman, healing
1 Priest, shadow
1 Warlock
1 Mage
1 Rogue
1 Hunter

Once you have everything on farm, and geared up some, you may find it fully possible to complete the instance with only two healers, and six DPS, giving you a faster run. This requires experienced healers, though.

Bosses

Attumen the Huntsman

Getting there

When entering Karazhan, continue straight forward, and you'll eventually stumble upon Attumen the Huntsman, and his horse Midnight. The respawns in this particular part of the instance is on an extremely short timer (25 minutes), so it's important that you do not take too long clearing it, and killing Attumen himself. Once he's dead, they will stop spawning. The trash itself is not very hard, although they have a few special abilities; the Chargers fears everyone near it and charges the ranged players, the Stallions debuffing people with -stamina and -strength, the apprentices' debuffs with increased damage taken by fire, and the Stable Hand's has the ability to heal the horses. None of these debuffs can be dispelled, but all of them can be shackled as they're undead. Behind Attumen you can find a friendly blacksmith, who will repair your gear once you have achieved honored reputation with the Violet Eye. The blacksmith is surrounded by two packs of ghosts, it's a good idea to clear these so that you can come back to repair your gear later on, if you'd need it.

Boss Abilities

  • Melee damage - 1600 to 2100 on the tanks. 7500+ on cloth. He can be disarmed.
  • Shadow Cleave - 3000 to 4000 damage. Melee should stand behind him to avoid this.
  • Intangible Presence - Curse that reduces chance to hit with melee-, ranged attacks and spells by 50%. He casts this approximately every 30 seconds, and everyone in 30 yards range of Attumen will be affected. It can be dispelled by any class able to remove curses.
  • Charge - Charges a ranged target in the raid for his normal melee damage + 300. Can do 6000 and more on cloth. Also stuns for a short period of time as you get knocked back. 40 yards range. He will only do this after he mounts up again.

Midnight has no special abilities.

Strategy

Make sure your mages are ready to dispel the curses - it's very important for the DPS on this fight. The curses will keep coming throughout the entire battle. All warriors should also disarm Attumen whenever the ability is ready. You need two tanks, and three healers. Keep one healer on each tank, and a third healer healing both of them (and the raid, which will take very little damage).

Attumen is mounted on his horse Midnight as the battle begin. Your least well geared tank, your OT, will begin with pulling Midnight and the raid will start to DPS him down. Meanwhile your Main Tank stands close to Midnight - because when Midnight reaches 95% HP, Attumen will jump off the horse and go for someone in the raid. It's UTTERLY important that your MT is ready to pick him up immediately, else he will start one-shotting your healers. If you have brought a hunter, he should keep misdirection up on the MT in advance and quickly fire some shots on Attumen when he emerges, to help the MT pick him up.

Now it is important that you tank Midnight and Attumen in Line of Sight of each other, but make sure Attumen's cleave isn't hitting anyone but the MT, keep a 15-20 yard distance or so between them and it should be fine. Continue DPS the horse down, while the MT just tanks Attumen. As Midnight reaches 25% HP, Attumen will mount up again (if the two are in line of sight, else everything bugs out). Note that this reset aggro, so stop DPS while the MT picks him up and builds up new aggro. Meanwhile, everyone in the raid should now reposition themselves so that they stand as close as they can to Attumen, behind him, to minimize the charges. If you want to, you can keep your off-tank at range to absorb some of the charges.

DPS him till he's dead. It's a rather easy fight, with the biggest obstacle being the quick respawns. If you engage Attumen with any ghost horse trash still alive, he will call for them.


Moroes

Getting there

Walking past Bertold the Doorman (a friendly chap who can teleport you to Aran's room after you've killed him), who will be on your right side as you enter Karazhan, up the stairs, and then take to your left, you will find Moroes and his four servants. The trash in your way is a bit more challenging than the ones you faced on your way to Attumen.

  • Phantom Guests. There will be big larger packs of these non-elite ghosts which you'll need to AoE down (a holy paladin tanking these are great). They all have different abilities, with some of them being able to heal each other to full HP, which is why it's not a good idea to single DPS them down.
  • Skeletal Waiter. They hit quite hard, and has a debuff called "Brittle Bones", which occassionally turns the player affected into a skeleton with 0 armor. Most often, it's your MT who will be the target of this, and you will have to wait until it wears out before pulling next pack. Can be spell reflected. Healers have to be on their toes if the MT gets the debuff and turns into a skeleton before the fight is over.
  • Ghostly Steward. Hits moderately hard, but has a debuff called "Drunken Head Crack", which causes the target to take increased melee damage, and also makes the target unable to block, parry or dodge. This makes the tank take a whole lot of damage (4000 per hit is not uncommon), so healers needs to be on their toes. Usually this debuff comes with an emote (they yell stuff), so you'll know when it kicks in. They cannot be shackled, and comes in pairs, you will need one tank for each mob. They can be disarmed.
  • Phantom Valet. Hits insanely hard, and has demo shout. They cannot be taunted, be sure not to over-aggro on these as they usually hit for 10,000 on cloth, and can crit for over 18,000 damage.

Boss Abilities

Moroes unfortunately comes with 4 adds, they are a random setup of the following six (listed in preferable killing order);

Name "Class" Abilities Comment
Baroness Dorothea Millstipe Shadow Priest Mana Burn (6000), Mind Flay No tank needed. Nuke her down and interrupt her spells. Use as much stuns as possible to prevent her from mana burning.
Lady Catriona Von'Indi Holy Priest Heal, dispel shackle Stun, kick and interrupt her spells as you kill her. No need for a tank, she mostly cast spells and doesn't hit hard.
Lady Keira Berrybuck Holy Paladin Heal, dispel shackle, Blessing of Might, Divine Shield BoM can and should be dispelled from whoever she casts it on. She rarely use the shield.
Baron Rafe Dreuger Retribution Paladin Hammer of Justice, dispel shackle Hard to kite due to stuns. Shackle this one, and make sure to do it -very- often, as he will stun the shackling priest if the shackle breaks and kill him.
Lord Robin Daris MS Warrior Whirlwind, Mortal Strike The most dangerous add, shackle priority over all other adds. Can easily one-shot non tanks, refresh Shackle very often. This one and the prot warrior Ference has the highest HP of all the adds.
Lord Crispin Ference Protection Warrior Shield Wall The least dangerous add, although he has a lot of armour and HP, and should be killed last. You can have your OT tanking this one and Moroes at the same time.

Moroes own abilities are as follows;

  • Melee damage, 1600-2500 damage on plate.
  • Vanish. Does not reset the aggro list.
  • Garrote. 1000 damage every 2.5 seconds, for 5 minutes. Every time he reappears after vanish, he will garrote a random target, who will need extra healing for the remaining fight. You can dispel this with Diving Shield, Blessing of Protection, Stone Form and Ice Block.
  • Blind. A poison that can be dispelled. Occasionally cast on someone in melee range. Must be dispelled very quick if cast on a tank.
  • Gouge. Moroes will gouge the person with highest aggro (the MT) and turn to the person next in the aggro list. This is why you need two tanks on Moroes.
  • Enrage. On 30% HP, Moroes will enrage, increasing his damage.

Strategy

Important: Refresh shackle every 6-8 seconds - if the shackle breaks before you renew it, you're too slow and it can wipe the raid.
Dispel Blind (Poison) very quickly.

This fight is depending on what adds you get (it's random and changes every week), and depending on how many priests you have got. Start by MT pulling Moroes and everyone pulling their targets and shackling etc as soon he has pulled. If you have got the protection warrior, have your OT building threat on both this add and Moroes at the same time, else the OT just focuses on building threat on Moroes. The OT MUST be second on the threat list, make sure your DPS classes knows this. Quickly kill the priest adds, who will need no tanking. Shackle the remaining adds. After all adds are either dead, shackled or tanked (only the protection warrior add should ever be tanked while you're killing Moroes), you will move on to killing Moroes. It's important that you kill him rather fast, to get as few garrotes up as possible - the more garrotes up, the faster your healers will go out of mana. It's a good time to use heroism (shamans) after he reappears from the first vanish. Make sure the OT gets proper healing while the MT is gouged, and that your healers are aware of the fact that Moroes enrages at 30% HP.

After Moroes is dead, all garrotes will disappear. Kill off the remaining adds.

The biggest challenge in this fight is to CC properly, and to be able to have enough mana to heal through the garrotes. It's very important that the first adds and Moroes are killed off quickly, to preserve mana.

Trivia

All Moroes adds have the same last names as certain townfolks in Darkshire, Duskwood. Might suggest that they are related in some way.


Maiden of Virtue

Getting there

Heading back to the room before Moroes, you will find a doorway on the opposite side of the stairs. The easiest way to get to it is to walk back to the stairs and start clearing along the eastern wall. The doorway leads to a stair, when you've climbed it, kill off the mobs who are in the way of the doorway to your right side. Go through it and follow the big hallway to the right, which should lead you directly to Maiden of Virtue. The trash you will stumble upon, apart from the kind you encountered when making your way to Moroes, is the following;

  • Phantom Guardsman. They can knockback, and spawns non-elite doggies. These dogs hits quite hard for being non-elites (you don't want them on your healers), so kill them fast if they're not being tanked. Guardsmen can be shackled.
  • Spectral Sentry. Ranged mobs who has a multi-shot ability that hits on cloth for 3000 damage. Can be shackled.
  • Night Mistress. A warlock kind of mob, she uses shadow bolts and searing pain. Also debuffs players with Impending Betrayal (3000 damage after 10 seconds). At 50% she turns into her true self (demon form) and removes all debuffs on herself. Can be shackled.
  • Concubine. Debuffs players with "Temptation" (your attacks have a high chance to heal your target). At 50% she turns into demon form (wiping all debuffs on herself), at which point she AoE seduces for some seconds. By now she will also start putting a debuff on players which causes their hits to sometimes damage themselves. She can, and should be, banished and killed last if you have a warlock with you.
  • Wanton Hostess. This mob has two auras, one of which she will use before she transforms at 50% (which causes all physical damage done by the raid to be lowered by 50%), and the other one she will use after being transformed (which causes all spell damage done by the raid to be lowered by 50%. It's a good idea to kill these first as they lower your raid's damage output by a -lot-. After she has transformed she also starts to AoE silence within a short range. Can be shackled, but her aura remains active even if shackled.

Boss Abilities

  • Melee, hits for 2500-3500 on plate, 4000-5000 damage crushing blows.
  • Holy Wrath. A chain lightning kind of spell which does more damage for every target it hits. According to Wowhead.com, it should hit for 2000 damage on the first target, 2900 on the second, 3800 on the third player and 5400 on the fourth one. 20 second cooldown.
  • Repentance. Deals 1500-2000 holy damage and stuns everyone in the raid for 12 seconds. Any damage will break this effect. She casts this on a random interval, but there's always more than 25 seconds between them.
  • Holy Ground. Infuses nearby ground with holy power, dealing 240-360 holy damage every 3 sec. to everyine within 12 yards range. Silences for 0.5 seconds every 1 second, preventing non-instant spellcasting. Breaks the Repentance stun. She will use this throughout the entire fight.
  • Holy Fire. Does 3500 damage to a random target and applies a dot that does 1750 damage every 2 seconds. Lasts for 12 seconds. Can and MUST be dispelled. Grounding totem and spell reflect works as well. It's a 1 second cast, so you will see when she casts it and on whom she will cast it on. Will not be cast on players in melee range.

Strategy

This is a very healing intense fight, make sure to bring mana potions, and use mana replenishing totems. If you have brought a shadow priest, put him in the healer group for extra mana regen. It's not an easy fight, compared to the two previous bosses she's a lot more challenging, so don't get depressed if you can't down her on the first try. If you can, pat yourselves on the back and prepare for the Opera Event :)

She is supposed to be tanked exactly where she stands before engaging her. It's important that the raid spreads out well, to prevent the Holy Wrath to hit more than one target. Many boss addons have a little window where you can see if you stand too close to someone (Deadly Bossmods, BigWigs, etc). One ranged between each pillar is a good spread out, but make sure to not stand too far away from the middle as the pillars breaks Line of Sight with the healers. Because of the Holy Wrath, it's not recommended to keep more than 3 players in melee, including the tank, and these have to spread out as well, standing in a triangle formation as far away from each other as possible. Make sure to save a spot for the melee to run out and bandage, and make them aware of where it is. Melee DPS will take a lot of damage in this fight, and it is adviced that they run out when repetance is up, as there is noone that can heal them at that point. It goes for all the fight anyhow, if melee DPS notices themselves going very low on HP, run out and bandage immediately.

There are two main difficulties with this fight; The stun (healers stunned for 12 seconds is no fun), and the Holy Fire. The Holy Fire can and must be dispelled ASAP, else it will start killing off players which you can't afford to lose. There are several sollutions to the stun problem. The best one is a paladin keeping "Blessing of Sacrifice" on the tank when the stun is imminent (every 25 seconds), which will make his stun break as soon as the tank takes damage. He will then proceed healing the tank and dispelling Holy Fire until the other healers gets out of their stun. It is also possible to have a healer running into the "Consecration" area (holy ground) every 25 seconds so that he will take damage continously until the stun hits, and it will break immediately. This has a drawback though, as it's hard to predict when she will cast Repentance, and the Holy Ground silences anyone standing in it. The third possibility is to have a healer standing as close as he can to the boss, but not close enough to be affected by Holy Ground. The tank will then drag Maiden just a few steps closer to the healer when the stun hits, and the healer will be affected by Holy Ground and get free from his stun. The tank will then drag Maiden back into position.

Other than that, it's just tank and spank. Repeat till she's dead.

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