A couple things to say tonight: New Kara boss, and AV glory.

New Karazhan Boss

While the Halloween event is happening, the Lich King sent a wave of scourge through Azeroth in the form of Zombies. Part of this event was a new boss added to the servant’s quarters above Attunmen in Karazahn. We cleared Kara a few days ago, but luckily Blizz did the Smart Thing ® and spawned the boss despite how you were saved to the instance. We mustered up a group, picked up Alidar (our favorite pickup tank mind you, he’s very good, doesn’t mess around and is very fun to play with) and headed in. The fight was pretty typical, except that it had the advantage of being unknown to most of us (some people had read a bit about it before going in, but we don’t count that :P). It was the most fun I’ve had in a long time in a raid environment (although the other week’s 4/6 run in ZA where we downed the fire boss with less than a minute on the timer and only a couple standing was pretty intense). We had to wipe a few times and experience the fight before we licked it. Once we got it, it was cake. I’m confident next week we’ll go in there and one-shot the bastard.

It’s somewhat of a bummer that he only drops an ax and a pet. Where’s the magic-user’s gimmick Blizz? However, this made it totally worth it:

Yup, that’s Nightshara, a resident hunter, using the ax. Apparently her kids got a total kick out of it and she stood around playing it in Shattrath for a while I believe. I’m glad she got it and that her kids enjoyed it so much! I’m sure no one enjoyed it more than she did with her family

Alterac Valley

I was in BGs earlier this evening, just grinding away hours until Wrath comes out- we had done the Headless Horseman summons 9 times already, and both of my trick-or-treats turned me into a bat and a skelleton. I entered AV because it’s the quickest honor grind, and let’s be honost, I don’t really play BGs for fun or the PVP aspect of it (getting trained isn’t my thing). Anyway, after 39 minutes, check out the score:

Click the image to see my entire screen shot. As a side note. I got the achievement for Everything Counts, and surely without those mines, we would have lost. The match started typically enough, everyone rushing Galv, then everyone rushing RH. We ended up in something like a double turtle. There was a complete stalemate at both the northern Alliance Bridge, and the the southern Horde…. hill thing between the towers. I distinctly remember the resources being 452 and 461 (Horde) when the turtle started. After I capped the tower next to Galv, I checked Tower Point, and continued south. When I got to Frost Wolf Graveyard, someone had capped it and I groaned to myself.

Turns out, it’s a good thing they did. I didn’t get much into that fenced in area and saw the fighting. The Alliance forces had been stopped dead in their tracks on that hill between the towers. I kept running around the tower and capping it (note my 3 caps), but then getting eaten by a Paladin and a feral Druid (surprise). I ran them around a good bit seeing as how I don’t have to kill them, I just have to keep them from undoing my tower cap. Anyway, we lost ground back to the gated area near the FWGY node, then we pushed back to the hill, then fell back again, and pushed to the hill again. Around 200, someone called out that this was a battle of attrition and that it wouldn’t be won with tower caps and such, so everyone should play it safe, don’t pursue, and don’t be an idiot trying to get HKs. Amazingly it worked. We deliberately didn’t push past the fence area after that and we ended up wearing them down.

Another side-note: I just re-spec’d deep destruction for PVP. It’s not the wisest choice, but I managed fairly well. In the screen shot you can see my bars are still visible and I still have my frames set up for raiding (don’t ask why recount was up, I didn’t even notice it), but once I get more comfortable in this pvp-destro skin I’ll be back to my streamlined UI and using my fingers a lot more.

P.S. - Tiburon, I want to know what it’s like with your uber-demo-spec. Sukiko says you rock hard in Arenas.

We did Kara tonight again. Run is down to 1 hour 37 minutes. I think this is the best time for us, we were moving very quickly, but any faster and it would have felt like work or an exam or something. I’m pretty happy with it, even if post-patch.

So it’s our first run after the patch. We cleared Karazhan in 1 hour 54 minutes with several disconnects and other net issues. Previous record was a hair over 4 hours. The chess event took the longest because it was bugged.

I bet we can do a 1 hour clear.

Tonight was my first complete clear as ‘Main’ tank in Kara and I’m thrilled. I didn’t MT it all, namely Shade, but instead threw on heals and kept people alive. I was able to MT Prince and Nightbane though without a problem really, but we had some really wretched elemental drops on Prince, like nothing we’ve ever seen before. Three times in a row, dropped right between the tank and the group, and there was an elem (or two) on the tank at almost all times. Anyway, that’s not all that interesting, just another story from another guild that’s farming Kara.

The REAL fun comes in after our Kara runs. One of our resident warlocks, Tiburon likes to give us a chance to make 25g (apparently the easiest money you’ve ever made). He’s an honest guy, so why not? Only 5g gets you into the pot, and then we play Ritual Of Doom. The rules are simple; if you die, you win, but money isn’t any good to you dead. Tonight we played, but I had a trick up my sleeve (read the combat log):

>:]

We were blazing through Kara on par for probably our quickest run and we ended up having to bail due to some RL stuff.

I’ve posted my WWS log here: http://wowwebstats.com/yurk4dldz3kpo

It’s a different account from the one that Sukiko runs that is linked in the sidebar.

What would make your resto-spec’d shaman say this in arena? (click for full size)

That’s right. A 5-box arena team. If you can’t tell, it’s a paladin and four enhancement spec’d shamans. Each with windfury and grounding totems. AWESOME.

The match started and we were at a stalemate for probably 15 minutes or so, neither side moving. We ended up realizing that our best bet was to split up and play the assumed weakness of one person being able to look in five different places at once. It worked. We pulled out a win and did pretty well for ourselves the rest of the night.

Also, our Kara run was REALLY good. Screenies below.

Our shadow priest accidentally pulled maiden and was down in three seconds. We ended up 9-manning her though. It was so much fun!

Guild Kara runs start tomorrow!

So we all have pretty much gotten tossed into some partial Kara pugs. Mainly we’re grouping with two other small guilds and for the most part it’s working well. However, this is not about that. The other night we were simply grinding the daily heroic and we ended up four-manning Heroic Botanica!

On Tuesday, Sukiko and Mizzle had the pleasure of running Kara with Rebel Alliance, downing Attumen and Moroes. Wednesday, Lolotov and Tarfang ran with Horde Hunters, downing Attumen, Moroes, Maiden and Curator!