A Race in Kara

So last night, Deressy and Hunzul went back to Kara. There was a bit of confusion as our raid leader had posted two groups, starting about an hour from one another. When he went to delete one, people had signed up for the later group - and so there was a LOT of confusion on the start time. Apoc (the raid leader) actually ended up stepping out of the group to allow one of our newer members, a shaman, to join when he arrived after being one of many confused by the time.

Then Apoc declared a race to Prince - he was going with his old guild (a guild currently raiding in Black Temple). Ha, yeah right. We *did* have about a 10 minute head start, but still. There was also a question of whether we'd be able to down Moroes without Apoc. Not *my* question, mind you, but the tanks weren't sure if they could do it. Also, we had a borrowed healer (one of our guild members had a toon in the guild Apoc was going with) who had never healed with our group before (more on last week's pally in another post).

We had a couple of silly deaths on trash, but no wipe (nice change). Attumen went down without much trouble and dropped his obligatory badge for everyone and a couple of items no one really wanted - Vambraces of Courage, which one of our tanks begrudgingly took, and Gauntlets of Renewed Hope, which were D/E'd.

On to Moroes. We actually one-shotted him, and had no real problems whatsoever. It was a beautiful thing. And we were *still* ahead of Apoc and his group. Moroes dropped Royal Cloak of Arathi Kings, which our new DPS warrior snatched up, and Crimson Girdle of the Indomitable, which went to one of our tanks.

On to Maiden. Our pally tank decided to let the off-tank take care of Maiden and he stepped back and healed a bit, dispelling the Holy Fire she does. Just as we were waiting to start the maiden fight (Lup was putting on his healing gear), Apoc messages me that Moroes is down. Maiden dropped for us in one-shot, too (we're having a very good night so far) and gave us Iron Gauntlets of the Maiden, which our off-tank needed and took, and Bands of Nefarious Deeds, which our warlock picked up without having to spend a roll.

On to the opera event. Now, I've done this maybe six or eight times now, and have seen Oz a *load* of times, and the Big Bad Wolf three times. I have never seen Romulo and Julienne. Until last night! W00t! A couple of the guys that HAD seen it explained it ahead of time so we'd know what would happen. There was a bit of confusion on who spawns first, but since you are only fighting one at that time, it doesn't seem to matter much. For the record, first you kill Julienne. Then Romulo. Then they both pop up together and you have to kill them both within a few seconds of one another. We put all our dps on one, then had the tank hold aggro on that one while getting the other's health down too. One thing we'd do differently next time, is that we got Julienne's health down first. However, she has a nasty habit of trying to heal herself. Next time, we'll do Romulo first and then Julienne - it will probably go a bit smoother. At any rate, we one-shotted the event.

Curator was next. This is the fight I'm probably most familiar with, as it's quite straight forward. He went down rather quickly and dropped Gloves of the Fallen Hero, which our warlock snapped up uncontested, and Forest Wind Shoulderpads. I don't think I've *ever* seen those shoulderpads *not* drop.

We made a couple of attempts on Illhoof, even bringing in a good priest friend of mine when our other healer couldn't stay awake any longer. However, everyone was tired, so we decided to skip on to Aran. We one-shotted Aran, who dropped Pauldrons of the Justice Seeker (which got D/E'd) and Shermanar Great-Ring, which our pally tank picked up with a need roll.

We decided to move to Chess and then call it a night. I was really hoping my boots would drop! My boots serious need replacing - I am wearing blues. I have a couple of purple cloth boots, but they are more spec'd for boomkin than healing. I had no luck though. We D/E'd Legplates of the Innocent and our off-tank picked up Battlescar Boots on a free roll.

Needless to say, we didn't win the "race" but we had a good time along the way. We've got a good bit to cover on Monday night now - and... (YAY!) I can now summon Nightbane! W00t!

CC? We Don't Need No Stinkin' CC!

As *zul and I were driving to the airport today, we were trying to keep each other awake and discussing a recent post we saw about whether the class make up of group or the personalities was more important. I remembered a Shadow Labs run we did recently with not one, not two, but *three* warriors.

At least two (Mozul and Motoronin) of the three were prot spec (as I recall, Fishbane was sporting his favorite spec, dps). At any rate, most everything got tanked (but nothing died particularly fast).

*zul was suggesting we try Kara with all prot specs and a couple of healers...but I don't think I'd want to be in there all night for one boss fight. :p

By the way, we decided that in *most* cases, we'd take personality over specific classes (at least for 5-man instances).

Kara from the Backseat

While we are on vacation and I am computer-free, *zul still has his computer, as he was originally here for work. After we arrived at our little cottage-by-the-sea (on five-acres of fruit-growing trees and bushes), we discovered it had internet...and not even dial-up. Yay!....and darn!

Well, we noticed a kara run starting up on Tuesday and Hunzul had not yet gotten to set foot inside....so I encouraged him to sign up. He did, we planned our day around his run starting at 4pm our time and at 3:45, invites went out and he was ready.

This was his first run...and my first chance to see Kara without the pressure and distraction of healing it.

It was fun, despite having difficulty seeing the screen due to my angle. Admittedly, after Attunmen, I mainly only watched during the boss fights. It was admittedly kind of fun to see the fights from another perspective and without the pressure of trying to keep folks alive. Also, particularly as I was watching Hunzul's first run, it reminded me a bit of my first time in Kara.

Despite watching from the backseat, I tried *not* to be a backseat driver, distracting or harassing Hunzul while he tried to enjoy his first run. I thought he did quite well, despite a couple of mistakes (which he talks about in his post).