The Egotistical Priest
An irreverent and opinionated discussion of the many classes
in the World of Warcraft gaming universe.
Heroic Karazhan. And Stuff.
by Vonya
Heroic Karazhan
So, last night we five-manned Kara.
Well, it was more of a five and a half man. There was a gnome.
(Okay, okay, the half wasn’t REALLY because she was a gnome, it was because she had just dinged 70 and wasn’t geared out like everyone else. C’mon, it was a pretty good gnome joke. You know it was.)
We started out with more people - I think we had eight when we downed the new boss (Congratulations to Aensu for a ridiculously hilarious axe drop), but we lost two people who’d made other arrangements for the rest of the night, and the rest of us decided to just keep on truckin through the raid instance. I have to admit, I was surprised. No interrupts on Aran, one newbie to gear (poor thing didn’t even get many drops. The gods of Karazhan were not in her favor), one healer, one offtank with a bear spec (and you poor feral druids know that since the patch, that means almost no cat talents to boost cat dps), and we did it anyway, in pretty good time.
It was a lot of fun - by undermanning it, we still had at least a LITTLE bit of a challenge.
Who Needs a Full Raid, Anyway?
So, if you’re bored, and tired of how easy the raid instances are nowadays, here’s a bit of advice. Take about half the people you’d normally take and go crazy. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t. But if you’ve already had the fun of tearing through instances and raids that used to be difficult, maybe you’re looking for the challenge that used to be there.
Sometimes it can be hard to pull an entire raid together, what with the expansion and burnout and various other reasons for not playing.
If you’ve got four dps, a tank, and a healer…go have some fun. Tell ‘em Ego sent ya.
28 Days Later
Also, I know the event is over, but just in case anyone wants to know my opinion on the whole Zombie Apocalypse event, it is thus :
Those who did not have a specific goal in mind that they wished to accomplish during this past weekend loved it. The zombie thing gave them something to do - whether fighting the zombies or being the zombies.
Those who actually wanted to level an alt, work an a profession, fly from one point to another, do ANYTHING or accomplish any specific goal during that time period hated it.
From my perspective, these past few days in game have been asshat heaven.
I actually stopped logging in by the time the weekend hit, and the days leading up to it were frustrating in the extreme, as my lowbie alt’s quest givers were more often trying to eat my face than allow me to do a turn in. Completely destroying a vital quest hub over and over and over again is griefing, not fun. If I hadn’t actually been trying to do something, I wouldn’t have cared. But since I was constantly thwarted in my attempts to play the game, I stopped playing it.
I don’t think it matters at this point - Blizzard has stated via blue posts that the event went off as planned, and that they wanted to try an event that would affect every single player, from lowbie to high level, and they succeeded.
However. Given the amount of complaints generated by the event, I don’t think we’ll ever see a free-for-all gankfest like this again.
Any game-wide event that keeps me from playing a game that I’m actually paying for is going to piss me off. I know a lot of people that enjoyed the event, and I’m happy for you, I truly am. (Those of you who weren’t griefing for the sake of griefing, that is. I AM aware that it was possible to enjoy the event without ruining the game for other people.) I just wish there had been some safeguards put in for the people attempting to get some goals done. And I believe that when something like this is implemented again, those safeguards will be in place.
Edit : I just thought of something that could work on that score, and would actually make it fun to be the person KILLING the zombies, instead of just the person being zombies. Remember the npcs that stood in the major cities? Why not make zombies lootable for little badges? For every…say…fifty badges that are turned in, another little camp of healer npcs would appear, further and further from the major cities. That way the players could actually affect how many healers there were - you could defend your city, and by doing so, you could actually make it easier for your fellow players. The healer npcs would keep the areas around them cleansed of zombies, but they would only spread out as the turnins were done, as proof of just how bad the zombie menace was in that area.
That way the griefers and mischiefmakers are happy - they still get to be zombies and wreak havok. The defender players are happy - their efforts to contain the zombie menace are actually rewarded by changes in-game (and lets face it, if you spent all weekend killing zombies, wouldn’t you LOVE to see the fruits of your labors?). The players just trying to get stuff done are happy because their areas are clear.
Win/Win/Win!
Chocolate
Plain, or with addatives such as coconut, berries, or nuts?
Discuss.
Postscript
Dear Blizzard,
Thanks for the new boss in Kara, that was a lot of fun. However, since the playerbase is getting (at best) only two shots at him, why did you make his neat axe drop (very cool hidden use effect on that, by the way. You totally win on that one) be a rare drop?
Rare…from a mob that people will only get to see twice?
Perhaps I’m missing something and he will be a permanent boss in Kara. But it seems kinda mean, is all I’m sayin’.
Oh, and thanks for the batling. Very cute.
Love,
Vonyari, the Egotistical Priest
October 28th, 2008
Berries or cherries are welcome but there’ll be a lynch mob if you put nuts in meh chocolate!
October 28th, 2008
The axe he drops is blue, but he ALWAYS drops it from what I’ve read. So it’s not rare in terms of drop rate — it’s rare simply because he’s only around for another week.
October 28th, 2008
@Stelinor
Axe is indeed Epic, and I’ve heard of a couple unlucky groups not having the axe drop.
October 28th, 2008
Chocolate: Plain, dark preferred. If there must be additives, caramel is acceptable. Chocolate-covered strawberries and double-dipped chocolate almonds are also fine.
October 28th, 2008
Hey, you just MD’d zombie talk onto chocolate!
October 28th, 2008
@Iratio
True, but most people here had a chance to air their opinions on the zombie thing yesterday in the comments. I figured this way anything new could come through, and people could also talk about the axe or…y’know…chocolate.
Because seriously, who doesn’t love to talk about chocolate. Only communists. It’s science.
October 28th, 2008
*applause* I felt the same way and posted about the zombie event. My case is that world events should be consental. Griefing is griefing. When it is empowered by the game design, the game fails.
October 28th, 2008
I don’t understand what would be consensual about the plague overcoming people and turning them into mindless minions of death for the Lich King.
Do you get angry when mobs kill you, because you didn’t consent to being killed? That event was amazing and I’m glad I got to be a part of it. But I guess killing stuff and being killed by stuff in an MMORPG is a bit much..
October 28th, 2008
We don’t do chocolate in teh Khol’s Army of One.
October 28th, 2008
@Shatter Ahh, but the problem was that people were not becoming “mindless minions”. If they were mindless then they wouldn’t have been doing things like deliberately going after one or two key npcs such as the matron who hands out the halloween quests, or the flight masters, or creeping into the bank to vomit then running off to the auction house to explode themselves. If they were in fact mindless they’d be charging around trying to gnaw on the brains of anything that moved.
They weren’t mobs - they were people, and in Shattrath you couldn’t even do a thing about it as they weren’t attackable. I’d have enjoyed the event for more than the first day if it had really been mindless minions. Great idea on paper, didn’t work so well in practice.
October 28th, 2008
@Hel
Except they were victim to any undead spell, so if you really tried you could lock them down before they were even an issue. On my paladin I was taking out 3-4 of them at a time, so when people tell me that the zombies were PVP I just kind of have to laugh.
The only place I’d say that was flawed was Shattrath but otherwise the event was fun and easy to play through. Kill them if you want them gone; cleanse people before they could grief you. Save for the sprint the zombies were slow, and if you CC them after the sprint they have to stand there. The explosion also had a very long cooldown so if you stopped it, that was that.
It was a week long event that broke the monotony of doing the same 24 quests every day. Thank you, Blizzard, for giving us a world event that actually shook things up.
October 28th, 2008
What exactly do you need to heal the nerfed Kara these days (minimum requirements in terms of spellpower, mana regen, haste, etc.)? I remember reading that it used to be something like 1400 plushealing and 500 mana regen, but what does that translate to post-patch?
For that matter, what do you need for any of the other raid content at level 70?
On a related note, does the IDS spec (23/38/0) get any love anymore these days?
October 29th, 2008
Oooh, I like the idea of turning in badges to spawn more healers. That would have felt much more proactive.
Chocolate - dark, always. No nuts. Caramel, mint, and raspberry flavoring are allowable.
October 29th, 2008
@redys
Two skilled level 68 priests can heal a normal Kara farm raid (normal besides having two level 68 healers that is). I’m not sure what a new group of soon-to-be raiders would need, but I’ll recommend 3 level 70 healers (in lvl 70 blues and greens) - you’ll just survive so much more - later you can go with just 2.
If the raid team is experienced and you are looking to earn a slot - see above - you only need to worry about sub-uber mp5 and spellpower if you are going to solo heal Karazhan.
Two geared healers makes Kara almost newb proof (moving during flame wreath because its your first time and you are in the wrong vent channel will still -tend- to wipe the raid).
October 29th, 2008
@ teh Khol
Er..Army of two. You know it.
/drinking Margeritas in the Fortress of Win
October 29th, 2008
Hmmm…I loved the zombie event. And yes, I was trying to fly somewhere and the FM kept getting zombiefied so I couldn’t.
The part I don’t understand is that people say, “I can’t play the game I’m paying for”. It seems to me part of the game is the zombie invasion.
You could play the game, you just choose not to.
For me, I just stopped what I planned on doing, and did something else. And the something else was just as fun. Zombie-bomb FTW!
October 29th, 2008
Like the idea of taking less peeps to a raid than normal. Think we are going to run to Gruuls and Mags and try it with 15.
October 29th, 2008
@ Shatter: Any class that had abilities specifically designed against undead, an escape/stealth mechanism, crowd control or slowing effect from range, or even the inherent ability to remove diseases had the best potential for fun, I’m sure.
Warriors have none of the above, and are only legitimately capable of combat in melee range. Basically, the only chance I had on my Warrior to not be infected was to see zombies long before they came with in a reasonable distance, and run away, or resign myself to becoming 1…again, so that my peers could kill me for fun and sport…again. Of course, as often as not, I was infected while stepping through a portal, landing from a flight path, etc., where I had no ability to control my range to the zombie. So I died…a lot…and it felt a little unfair that it was entirely based on my decision to play a certain class.
Granted, I did not mind the event. It provided some fun at times. However, it was more frustrating than fun, and I’d have rather had a reasonable chance of not being infected if I did not want to be, and of not having my NPCs becoming infected, or at least having some form of recourse if I DID become infected. All in all, it was poorly thought out in the sense that a certain class was totally defenseless against it, and completely at the mercy of other players. I agree it wasn’t a forced PvP event, because in PvP there should be some sort of balance, even of the paper-rock-scissors sort. I am certain I’d have had much more fun with the event with any other class, but playing a Warrior, it was more annoying than fun.
October 30th, 2008
Lots of discussion about the zombie epidemic in episode 22: http://www.twistednether.net ..
Also, in the 3 (at least) times I have gone and killed the new boss (on different toons), the axe has dropped all 3.
October 30th, 2008
The AD healers could remove the plague better than any class could, and you could have always grouped up with a friend. Honestly, there’s no reason why the zombie event should have hampered your fun if you really wanted to do something. I mean if you were an RPer and were just sitting in a capital city all day, then yes I suppose it’d change your RP as the world was infested with zombies, but other than that… it was just such an easy thing to answer to. Where were you that fighting zombies was impervious? They were in 2 places I can think of: 1) Capital Cities 2) Lowbie zones.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,444505,00.html is the kind of thing that makes me sad. Blizzard went out of their way to break the tedium for once, something that a lot of people said they wanted, and because they couldn’t control every aspect of it they hated it. It’ll just mean we get less world events in the future. Maybe some people should just play single player games.
October 30th, 2008
Hmmm, chocolate and zombies…
The happiness buff could provide immunity. Chocolate cake for everyone!