The Emerald Flame
A World of Warcraft Guild SiteArchive for January, 2008
Karazhan Signups: Sat. February 2nd
Since the SuperBowl is on Sunday, we’ve decided to give another go at Kara on Saturday again. We are looking to start at 6pm server (4pm Pacific) like last time, so sign up on this post or make any other comments that concern you.
-Pumkin/Damaris/John
Ideas for Kara
Hey all,
So I’ve mentioned this to Pumkin, Guild and Feril now, and thought I’d post here to elicit responses from the other guild members…
Do y’all think it’d be best to focus our Kara runs on just the first 4 or 5 bosses for the time being, farming gear off of them, to make our progression through the rest of the instance a bit easier? Obviously I’m not suggesting we stop trying to get further into Kara altogether, but if are a bit more surgical in our approach and really focus on honing our skills in the beginning half of the instance, I think it may be easier for us to progress as time goes on.
If this weekend taught us anything, it’s that we’re fully capable of clearing everything through Curator. Several of us feel that even Shade would’ve fallen to us, if we’d been able to attempt a few more times (without all that trash respawning!) That said, the fights after Curator proved to be really taxing on us as a group, and I know it’s instilled some doubt as to our ability to handle these fights effectively.
I’m of the opinion that we should continue “farming” these first couple of Kara bosses every week (up to or even through Curator) to get everyone’s gear up to par, and THEN focus on trying to get further in.
Thoughts?
-Caelorum/Dan
The Curator Finally Goes Down!
After only our third visit to Karazhan, The Emerald Flame has taken down The Curator! On top of that, we downed the first four bosses on our first try! No wipes! While we wiped on the first pull of The Curator due to a mispull, I was really surprised how far we got him down. Everyone was organized and knew what they were supposed to do. As Pumkin, I found a lot of success by standing behind Curator, though I think it might be best to stand to his right or left so I could drop some renews on the DPS kids if they needed it. A lot of caster gear dropped on Saturday, with Brittastic ultimately getting the tier 4 gloves off of Curator!
Hot off our success on Saturday, we returned to Karazhan for more. Most of us were able to upgrade our rings and finish the quests in the library, so we still had some success. However, after several attempts, we were unable to down either Illhoof or Shade of Aran. These attempts were definitely a learning experience, and I know we will eventually get them down (Shade of Aran looked scared, we almost had him!).
Next time, Aran! Next tiiiiiiime!
-Pumkin/Damaris/John
Karazhan: Saturday, January 26th
Since no one has specifically said that they cannot attend Saturday, I figured that we would try it out. So let’s plan on raiding this Saturday at 6pm server time (4pm Pacific time). We have added a few people to our ranks, so hopefully we don’t have to PUG anyone. Sign up on this post!
We Can Has Kara on Caturday? Unpossible!
While we have done our first two runs on Karazhan on Sundays, I would like to explore the possibility of hitting Karazhan on Saturday. This Saturday, to be more specific. In addition, what about a different time then 5pm server time? Some mentioned they’d like the raid to be later.
Discuss.
-Pumkin/John
Ventrilo?
Since Blizzard included a chat option for the user interface in WoW, we’ve seen little need for using Ventrilo or TeamSpeak. However, there are many raiding guilds that still use these programs. In the past, we have laughed at these people since using the WoW chat is “easier”, but is it truly easier?
First off, I have to turn all my sounds down and the chat options up in order to hear anyone. So when I log off of WoW and try to watch “Planet Unicorn” or listen to music, I have to turn those way down as well. As a result, using the WoW voice option requires that I change the sound on every other program I use on my computer if I don’t want to continually adjust the volume of my speakers (which actually doesn’t sound too bad, but I still think it is a valid point :)
In addition, I can’t change the volume of individual people. So I am constantly saying stuff like, “Is this better? How about now? Okay now? No?” It’s annoying. I have a couple other minor problems, but I don’t think they are that important. Maybe people could comment on this post and tell us what they like/dislike with the WoW voice client.
Now, would Ventrilo be better? Many people comment that Ventrilo is a great way to stay in touch when the servers are down. This would have been great to have when the servers went down during our Kara raid on Sunday. I also think Vent would be a great way to stay in touch all the time, not just during a raid or even while playing WoW.
Vent has a lot of advantages and I think we should seriously discuss what we want to do. The only problem is that we would need to get a computer to host a server, right? However, I think Greg has a computer available for that. Anyway, I know I have kinda rambled, but I am not great with the technical stuff, just opinions :)
Discuss.
-Pumkin/John
Karazhan: January 20, 2008
Yesterday’s Karazhan raid showed some improvement and some areas where we can improve. First off, I think it is fantastic that we killed Attumen and the Maiden of Virtue in one try. On the other hand, we had a lot of trouble with the other three bosses we attempted. On Moroes, we had some crowd control issues, especially with the PUG hunter we picked up. The Opera Event was difficult because we’d never done “Romulo and Julianna”, though I think we learned that we need to bring three healers for that. The Curator is just plain difficult. We discussed changes in formation and healing rotation that might help with this very hard boss. However, he has some awesome loot once we do drop him, so don’t give up!
I think we should all be stoked that we once again downed four bosses, and I cannot wait to do it again. We all up for next weekend? Saturday/Sunday? I know I am.
-Pumkin/John
Twenty Man Raid on Maiden of Virtue!
Romulo and Julianne Dead
Karazhan: The Sequel
As Feril put it, the whole guild’s been “abuzz” since our success in Karazhan last Sunday. Let’s ride that buzz and try again this next Sunday, who’s with me!? (sign up on this post :)
-Pumkin/John
Mods!
Here are some mods that we use:
Omen threat meter
*everyone should get this*
Omen provides a metered readout of the current aggro level and aggro gain of you and the other members of your party/raid who have this mod. It’s very helpful for managing your aggro level to stay below the tanks (or to stay on top of the meter, if you’re tanking).
Auctioneer
Auctioneer has tools to scan the Auction Houses, listing high, low and mean prices for a given item. A very useful tool if you want an inside track on getting your auction to sell quickly!
Damage Meters
Damage Meters is a cool little tool that shows your percentage of damage done during your time in a party/raid. But it gets better! It also compiles all manner of other statistics, including: healing, overhealing, damage + healing, damage taken, etc. Not one of the real must-haves, but a fun mod nevertheless.
Itemrack
Itemrack is fantastic for hybrid classes, or any character that might need to have more than two sets of gear on them at one time. Some of our druids use it to swap between restoration/balance and feral gear, tanks can use it to swap between stances, mages can use it to swap between +crit and +hit gear, etc.
Gatherer
I’d consider this a must-get for anyone who has Mining or Herbalism as a profession. It will overlay the node locations of herbs and ore nodes onto your in-game minimap. It’s incredibly useful for farming runs, and it becomes even more worthwhile once you’re flying around on an epic mount. Farming’s almost fun with this!
Atlas and Atlasloot Enhanced
Wonderful map mods! Atlas comes with mapped layouts of all the instances in the game, and the Atlasloot overlay lets you see what bosses drop which loot. Definitely handy to have for instance runs!
CTmod
This is a great pack, especially CT_RaidAssist. There are various mods included such as a mail mod, bar mod, map mod, timer mod, etc. Click on the downloads section to check-out each mod, then download a pack, or which ever mods you want.
Deadly boss mods Cleon was using this in our 1/20 Kara run and it was great. It had timers for all the bosses so that you would know when Moroes would vanish, or Curator was going to evocate. Also it told you when people were too close to you in the Maiden and Curator fights. Very useful for saving the healers’ mana.
Curse.com is a great place to find other mods, too. Explore and try them out. You can always delete the ones you don’t like.
Post your own mods with links.
-Everyone!
Our First Karazhan Raid!
We have finished our first raid on Karazhan! Our goal was to kill the first two bosses, and we were able to down FOUR! While it wasn’t a full guild raid (with two PUGs), I think it fully demonstrated that The Emerald Flame is Karacapable! I know that we are not at the point where we can do the whole dungeon, but if we can farm the first four or even five (damn you Curator!), then we will get there. We will get there!
Here’s the raid roster:
-Auryn
-Brittastic
-Cleon
-Dantofist
-Kayaan
-Llye
-Pumkin
+Aethan (doesn’t really count as a PUG since he has other characters in guild)
+Rhamsys (rogue PUG)
+Dragoness (hunter PUG)
Attumen The Huntsman
Moroes
Maiden of Virtue
Opera Event: Wizard of Oz
After the raid, Rhamsys sent me a link to a site that displayed our stats from the raid. For some reason, Llye is not on the list and is replaced by a hunter with the name “Starfarer”.
Well, I cannot wait till we can get a full guild run on Kara going. Next time everyone needs to have either speakers or headphones, don’t care so much about the mic, but you have to be able to hear us. Great job, guys!
-Pumkin/John
Addendum: Looks like we got a lot of screenshots. I’ve made a set in Flickr.
