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What to wear to melt faces in Karazhan, part two
Welcome back to my guide on pre-Karazhan Shadow Priest gear. If you missed part one, where I talked about general stat importance, some sets, and the first half of the item slots, go read it now. Back? Good. On with the show. In this part I will be covering the remaining slots (from gloves on down), and talking about what gems to use (the red ones), as well as some places to look for more information. Gloves Elementalist Gloves of Shadow Wrath. Yet another of Shadow Wrath green. Remember, I would advise against equipping too many of these, regardless of how good they are in-slot. Tempest's Touch (Caverns of Time quest). Gloves of the Deadwatcher (Shirrak, Heroic Auchenai Crypts ) Enchant Major Spellpower is, quite expensive, but other BC enchants are not worth bothering with. I'd say put it on any of the above. The old-world enchant Shadow Power is equivalent for you, if that's more convenient.
What to wear to melt faces in Karazhan, part one
Shadow priests, you are very desired in Karazhan. Between great DPS, mana returns for the group, and a Shackle, all KZ raids would probably benefit from having a face-melter along. This is a guide to gearing yourself up in order to get in those Karazhan raids and earn great epics, from Ritssyn's Lost Pendant to the Nathrezim Mindblade. Holy priests, this is not the post for you (unless you're trying to build a Shadow set as well) – look to the Holy Priest guide to gearing for Karazhan instead. Due to the unique mechanics of Shadow Priest combat, there is one stat that rises above the rest for you: +damage (either shadow or all schools). More +damage means more DPS, of course, but it also means more mana back from Vampiric Touch; this will be your primary form of mana regeneration, and you should have VT up at all times. Spell hit is also very important. Assuming you have 5/5 Shadow Focus (which you should, unless you're already hit-capped), you need 76 spell hit to reach the cap on level 73 mobs (raid bosses are considered level 73). Additional spell hit is relatively useless, although that once you reach 101 hit, you can take a point out of Shadow Focus and move it elsewhere; it's probably not worth gearing for this specifically though.
Gearing a Holy Priest for Karazhan, part two
Hey, Priest fans! Here is part two of our guide to some sweet gear that will get you ready to run Karazhan, everyone's favorite entry-level raid. If you missed part one, go check it out; I'll wait. Previously on "Gearing a Holy Priest for Karazhan" we talked about three relevant sets, as well as items for the head, neck, back, chest, and wrist. Today I'll be going over the rest of the slots, as well as gems. Let's get started. Gloves Hallowed Handwraps (Kargath Bladefist, Shattered Halls). You'll want to be running Hellfire instances anyway to get your Honor Hold/Thrallmar rep up for the head glyph. Blood Surgeon's Mitts. These drop from Broggok on normal Blood Furnace, oddly enough, but they're darn nice pre-KZ gloves. Gloves of Piety (world drop BoE). If you really can't get either of the above items, you might be able to snag these at the AH for cheap. Enchant Major Healing. A bit expensive; personally I might wait till Hallowed if not until a KZ drop (there are two good priest gloves in KZ) to enchant that. But if you have the spare cash/mats, go for it.
Gearing a Holy priest for Karazhan, part one
Hello, fellow Holy priests! Are you interested in Karazhan, but have never gone yet? Maybe you want some Badges, maybe you want some nice epics, or maybe you just want to hang out with nine other folks and have some fun. But what to wear? Well, the good news is you don't need amazing gear to start KZ. In fact, healing KZ can be easier than healing many heroics, in my experience, if only because you have another healer or two there to help you out. Of course, the better your gear is, the better your performance will be, but there are many easy-to-reach pieces of gear that will perform fine, and several that will perform amazingly, for Karazhan. Join me as I step through some recommended options.
Two players take on Karazhan
Two players with five characters each, that is! Suvega, the man who brought us quite a nice DKP system a while back, appears to be running out of challenges, so he and his girlfriend decided to see if they could multibox their way through Karazhan. So far, they've beaten Attumen, Moroes, the Maiden, and the Wizard of Oz Opera event, which is pretty darn impressive if you ask me. Check out a trailer above (or in higher quality at Stage6), follow their progress on their blog, or check this thread for pictures of their hardware setups (drool-worthy, if you ask me). Their class breakdown: Suvega controlled a Holy priest, a Prot warrior, and three Fire/Arc mages, while Vyndree helmed a Resto shaman, a Prot pally, and three Elemental shamans. What do you all think of this accomplishment?
Around Azeroth: Meet Malchezaar
This shot of Karazhan's Prince Malchezaar, sent in by reader Gabe, strikes a little close to home for me, personally. If you've never visited Karazhan and encountered the Prince, let me explain: throughout the fight infernals fall from the sky. When they land, they stand in one place send out damaging pulses of hellfire in a circle around them. As the fight progresses, your raid will find positioning more and more difficult until you reach the point this image shows us: infernals are everywhere and, without a safe place to stand, your raid has perished. Prince Malchezaar, having eliminated everyone else in your group, is now coming after you. Gabe explains the moment for us, "I've run to the door screaming for someone to let me out, (he's too tall to fit) but no one answers."Have any memorable raid wipes of your own to share? Send them to us at Around Azeroth! All you have to do is e-mail aroundazeroth@gmail.com with a copy of your screenshot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could find your pictures and story featured next!%Gallery-1816%
Around Azeroth: Meet the Maiden
Lolzengers of One on Nordrassil sends us this shot of Karazhan's own Maiden of Virtue, not quite at her best moment. (For those of you who are wondering, her best is usually when she's mercilessly devouring innocent groups of raiders.) But in defeat she looks so peaceful... like the loot pinata she was clearly meant to be.Have you ventured into any new corners of the World of Warcraft lately? Send your stories and screenshots to aroundazeroth@wow.com -- your image may be featured in the next Around Azeroth! %Gallery-1816%
Around Azeroth: Romeo and Juliet
Reader Gryffyn sends us this charming shot taken in one of the many rooms of Karazhan (in particular, in one of the hallways leading to Maiden). Is this the real story behind Romulo and Julianne's opera house performance? We may never know the story behind the skeletons... Do you have a unique shot of Azeroth or Outland that you'd like to show off to the rest of the world? Tell us about it by e-mailing a copy to aroundazeroth@wow.com, with as much or as little detail as you'd like to share with the world! %Gallery-1816%
Around Azeroth: The view from Karazhan
Reader Balcor of Bronzebeard sends in this unusual shot along with a story. Apparently he managed to leap off the Master's Terrace inside Karazhan and into the landscape below without zoning out of the instance. However, the place he landed wasn't exactly Deadwind Pass, where Karazhan is located. Instead it was an odd facade designed to give players a view -- for a while it seemed to match up to the real Deadwind Pass, then morphed into the Swamp of Sorrows, and finally ended in this void.Do you have a unique shot of Azeroth or Outland that you'd like to show off to the rest of the world? Tell us about it by e-mailing aroundazeroth@gmail.com! Or perhaps you'd just like to see more of your pics from Around Azeroth. %Gallery-1816%
Blue Notes: Aran's Flame Wreath and Blade's Edge graveyards
I have two quickies for you all in the wake of the Alchemy issues. One bug with the Shade of Aran has been fixed:Beneficial immunity effects from abilities such as Ice Block and Divine Shield will no longer cause the Shade of Aran's explosion effect from Flame Wreath to proc when the duration has faded.I'm sure he'll still wipe my guild without breaking a sweat -- he's what we're currently stuck on in Karazhan. Aran is the sixth boss in Karazhan (or so). Flame Wreath is an effect that puts a ring of fire around you; if you move, thus placing your character in the flames, it pretty much wipes the raid.And another piece of bug-fixing goodness, they've fixed that ridiculously obnoxious graveyard bug in Blade's Edge Mountains. I'm sure I'll still hate the zone when I take my third Outlander through there (Mage perhaps?), but a little less, now:All characters that die on the Northwest plateau of Blade's Edge Mountains will now be sent to the Evergrove graveyard.Previously, if you died up in the northwest of BEM, your ghost appeared at the Sylvannar graveyard (for Alliance; I'm not sure what the Horde equivalent is). While this is geographically closer to the northwest part of the zone than Evergrove is, due to BEM's labyrinthine layout, it takes a good ten minutes to run back to your corpse from there.
Forum Thread of the Day: Karazhan's timer too long?
Meugly, of Wraith on H-Icecrown-US, asks the simple question "shouldn't Karazhan be on a shorter timer?" Currently, it resets every week (on Tuesday, like all the other weekly raids). ZG and AQ20, on the other hand, reset every three days. Meugly's argument basically seems to go like this: Raiding guilds are having enough trouble transitioning from 40-mans to 25-mans, so Having a 10-man raid as the pathway to 25-mans creates a huge bottleneck. You can't really skip ahead to 25-man content, since you need the gear from KZ to have a chance at later raids. If you've got a raid guild with fair amount of raiders, you've basically got two options: Run one group a week, and leave a lot of people out. Obviously imperfect. Run two groups a week. This is, as Meugly says, "a logistical horror. So many of the boss fights require a pretty specific group make up. If one of the two teams is short a single player in a key class, they probably won't be able to raid at all that night." Reducing KZ's lockout time to three days would go a long way towards addressing this. You could, for instance, have a core group that runs twice a week, with others filling in the ranks as possible. Or you could run two separate teams but just have more flexibility -- if team B is short a Priest, and team A ran before the last reset, a team A priest could come along. Also, as the OP points out, KZ is kind of a step up to Gruul and Serpentshrine Cavern and such, like how ZG and AQ20 were arguably steps up to MC and the rest of the "classic" raids; and those 20-mans were, as I've already mentioned, 3-day resets.What do you all think? Is KZ enough of a "serious" raid to warrant a full week reset timer?
