Moroes

This is my first effort at a guide to Karazhan bosses; I see the same types of questions repeatedly asked during raids, and it just seems that current guides are not sufficiently detailed to guide raids through these fights. Two of my favorite guides for these instances are

The guide, with movie file, from Pillage

[url]http://karazhan_bosses_moroes.uber.com/[/url]

and Bosskillers various guides,

[url]http://www.bosskillers.com/cgi-bin/bbguild/index.cgi?sid=S4GqVCd2K6&action=bosspage&bossid=121 [/url]

These two provide a great background on the fight, and the movies are invaluable; the wowwiki is also a great resource for this fight, which takes some experience to complete due to the various adds that may be encountered with Moroes.

To begin with however, you have to clear this room; and there are both stationary and wandering pats. A cloaked party member can enter this room without detection and mark the wandering "waiters" which circle around the tables; there are always four, and at least two will make a circuit past the table at the entrance, which can lead to surprises; so just use all your raid marks to indicate those 4, and the table aoe groups which may or may not come with the wandering pats. This simplifies the job of the later pulls, since you can always find these mobs later through walls and you will be aware of their approach to avoid surprises.

Once the room is clear, you have the adds, or 'guests', on the raised area with Moroes. The simple approach is to double tank Moroes, and control the adds. The trick is in the crowd control, which depends highly on group composition.

There are two basic groups with Moroes; female casters, and male warriors/paladins. The basic rule is to control the males, and kill off the female casters first. Of the female casters, we typically designate kill order as Dorothea Miltstipe first; she is the shadow priestess, and can mana burn out a healer in a heartbeat, as well as doing tons of damage in a short time frame if not handled. Second in kill order is the other female caster, either the holy priest (Catriona Von’Linda) or holy pally (Keira Berrybuck). Their heals will mess with the kill order if they are not dealt with, although on their own neither do much damage, and die quickly since they are clothies.

The more specific approach that I want to explain is when you do not have 2 priests, and therefore two shackles for a caster and one warrior. That is an ideal situation, but more typical is a mixed group with at most one priest, or none at all.

Hunters can trap the two warriors; but the resist chance on these traps, and the shortened duration of traps, makes each trap attempt a liability to the group without a backup. By backup, I mean the following:

1. A good hunter can time out a trap sequence so the 2nd trap can be dropped at the same time the first one activates; they need a 30 second lead time, and a trap timer or the stopwatch function (/sw command) to time it accurately, but it can be done.

2. The second approach would be to safety trap with a second hunter, who would just stack another trap on the first activated trap.

3. Kiting; this is not as preferable to trapping, since kiting can lead to multiple raid deaths if for any reason the mob peels off to attack healers or other dps targets. A hunter can concussion shot one mob, then kite with pet and frost (not ice) traps, leading that mob around the room while the casters are killed off. This completely diverts a dps player off target, so skull (always dorothea milstipe) and triangle (second caster) die slower. and can potentially cause problems with traps or shackles.

4. Stuns/fears. This is least preferable, but can be done if you have a pally/rogue combination. A pally can fear undead, which is a real problem if the target leaves the room and resets your event. To avoid this, the loose mob can be pulled to the left side with Moroes and triangle; and then stunned by the pally or rogue, for enough time to cast fear. Spam fears can take over from there, repeatedly stunning and fearing that mob until the group is ready to tackle it. Two paladins for example can repeatedly stun and fear a mob like this; however they definitely have a resist factor that must be taken into account, just like the other mobs and trap or shackle resistance; nothing lasts as long as you want or expect, so everything requires safety trapping or constantly renewing shackles.

The warrior/pally mobs are high health/high armor targets, and not suitable for pet tanking. The damage they deal makes it unlikely any pet can withstand them for very long, even with heals from the master.

If things go to wrong, remember to run out of the room to reset the event. Moroes does have an enrage timer, and if too much of the group is down and dps drops below a point where he can reasonably be disposed of, it is time to run out and reset.

Our typical raid placement puts Moroes and triangle (second caster target) to left of his stage, near the wall. This avoids any complications from the tanks dealing with this target; and sticks triangle far enough to the side that a fear will not send her out of the room. Skull is typically tanked by an OT, like a ret pally or fury warrior, or by pets, or by a rogue repeatedly stunning while the group dps takes her down. Triangle can be feared during this process, and seems to return to the tank who pulled her originally.

Trap targets are placed to the right side of the room, to avoid aoe effects and conflicts with tank placement. Shackle targets are typically kept on th e stage where Moroes begins, so it is plain enough when a shackle breaks, and there is time to recast some control on that target.

Raider and Veteran Raider

Our officers met over this designation and decided on the following criteria.

For those who want to be considered as regular end game raiders, these two designations exist to help captains pick out substitute team members quickly and easily. To attain these rankings, however, you must at the very least have the mandatory addons, which at this point are Ventrilo, and Omen2. The recommended addons are Deadly Boss Mods, and Group Calendar. There are lots of other helpful addons, but this is now our official list; please contact an officer if you are having trouble with installs.

In terms of your rough gear scoring, we use the web page be.imba.hu ; this ranking software will quickly provide a score for those who wonder how their gear stacks up. Your Imba score appears near the graph of instances you are eligible to enter; and an Imba Score of 125 is mandatory for Raider membership.

You must run instances under a captain and that captain must then recommend your name to myself or to Aniscoria, the personnel officer; for final checking and promotion of your rank.

These three requirements; addons, gear score, and captain's recommendation, are all simple criteria we are going to use from now on for the Raider rank.

Veteran Raiders are those with the following additional statistics;

Gear Score must be at or above 200, in imba;

and you must have cleared both Kara, and Gruuls.

Any team captain may then make a recommendation that your rank be promoted to Veteran Raider.

Beginners Karazhan Team, 0727 and 0728

This team of Massacre members and random pugged chars was able to clear through Prince last night; and we could have done more if we hadn't run out of time. Along for their first real runs ever were

Thorthor, hunter
Loenwolf, rogue
Cathalii, priest
Veracity, shaman


and pugged from the crowd were newer members

Beotchsquach, priestess
Tagon, hunter
Tomatoned, Warrior

Newer members came out of it with at least one item, and in Thorthor's case, a slew of drops for his hunter. Throwing together these pugs on Sundays is going to be my consistent practice now, since it quickly gears these new members for participation in Kara runs and beyond; brand new 70s can run through Kara with an experienced team and gain entire sets of gear in one night. These runs accomplish more for me than the 'badge runs' and helps us attain our goals in Gruuls and Mags. Please feel free to use the pug folks identified above, as well as the chars from The Elite who ran with us, like Tagon, Warthelm(pally healer) (Dragonsdeaths alt) and Sithadan(warlock) (alt is holy priest, Alters). Expanding the useful group of our available healers and tanks can't but help our later efforts.

Karazhan, Blue Team July 24

With a brand new team composed of myself as a healer, we actually went through to chess event with only two healers total (Kokoro and myself) and managed to drop Netherspite, Illhoof, and Nightbane; Prince, we did with only Nistagmus and myself for most of the fight, healing the entire group! Kokoro died from enfeeble and Shadow Nova in the first few minutes, and Nist and I with a combined total of a bit over +1200 hps kept the entire group up; we lost Boramire at one point as the OT, due again to Shadow Nova and a really rough placement on an infernal that landed right between us, and Prince; but we succeeded, which was bloody amazing.

We also took through three new members; Apollock, Tryphosa, and Tamron. Each of them were able to experience Kara for the first time; Boramire was able to make it through to Prince as his own first. Apollock received three new epic pieces, due in part to the generosity of Blarlock who simply conceded the warlock loot due to the tremendous upgrades they represented to Apollock. This was, on Blarlock's part, a great gift and truly a team oriented decision, and is one of the best things about this guild.

Saturday at 6:00 p.m. this week, our next run with only Nightbane left; Stats for the run are at

Wowwebstats

As the MoA, my chars are able to cover these runs into Karazhan as backup chars; with a tank, hunter and healer I seem to be pretty flexible and able to help any Karazhan team out; if we don't keep scheduling runs the same time every night, hint, hint. I am trying to arrange to be available for the big nights, as backup, so that any run can form up roughly on time. My healer is now geared for end game instances, since I was able to badge loot my boots, and received a neck piece, and weapon, on this Kara run. My hunter is a moderate level dps, but survival specced for the cc in Karazhan; and since he is not my main, it is not a priority for me to run into Karazhan each week with a defined team.

Master of Arms, and down to business

I was recently appointed to the Master of Arms position; and to everyone in the guild I wanted to say I appreciate your trust in me, and it is an honor to receive this promotion. I hope that I meet your expectations.

Down to business; our Karazhan runs are becoming steadily more successful, as are the Gruul's efforts. Our membership took a recent climb in the past two weeks, so more are joining the ranks; and as a result, more are asking to enter end game instances. Each captain is traditionally responsible for choosing the membership of their teams, but it could be simplified somewhat by guild rankings. I was asked to propose a system of ranking raiders as either Raiders or Veteran Raiders; and I am forming my ideas about how such a system would work. I am asking, however, that anyone with ideas about this issue please comment.

Second, we now have what may be three full kara teams; Blue, Gold, and 'Dom'. Additionally, I was running a weekend Kara run of pickup members from both Massacre and The Elite; as well as other qualified members of other guilds who had not yet run Kara. I will probably continue to do this, and call that team Kara PUG; but our newer members may wonder why we have four different teams with differing names, no real convention, and no way to contact team captains without more information. I am asking the captains, or any interested Kara team member, to comment on this development. We most likely need a single naming convention that is uniform and easily explained; colors, captains names, veteran down to rookie, any of these might do.

This kara run was not as successful as you would expect; we were low on dps, and high on tanks, so curator was not very successful. The flares simply took us out, one by one. I think this run again proves that two tanks are the limit on melee dps for curator; you need ranged, because your main job is flares.

Healing this fight is rough; the damage is spread across the group, particularly when a flare hits any group of us too close together. The extra tanks in particular are targets, repeatedly.

Stats July 10 Karazhan

Gruul 0706

Gruul was our best effort yet, straight through to Gruul and only one wipe on him due to bad shatters. It was a 'grueling' fight, literally, since on the second successful attempt we lost nearly half the raid by its end. I was again off tanking, and we actually made it through 17 grows (not something any other guild mentions with any level of success, btw). He was hitting for over half my health at that point, as Varl dropped and I was tanking him alone by the very end.

Stats on this fight are posted; Gruuls Stats

An excellent job; now its on to Mag!

Kara PUG 0706

Ok, we tried the Karazhan PUG on Saturday; and made it through Opera, with some stumbles. We had new folks, like our barely geared off tank, and our lack of crowd control (only one hunter for traps, and not trap specced); and no one was really used to working with each other, although many of us were in Kara previously. The group however pulled together, and got through Attumen and Maiden in one shot; Moroes in two; and Opera in three tries. It was, actually, pretty amazing considering on Moroes, we had only a trap which broke repeatedly, and we were offtanking mobs with a dps warrior and a brand new 70 prot. We used stuns, minions (felguard, and felhunter) and pally fears to keep mobs moving when necessary; and I double tanked trash and adds when needed. Our dps was fairly low, actually, so every fight took much longer and we had OOM problems; but we still made it through to Opera, and I was actually pleasantly surprised at group cohesion and teamwork.

The Opera event was Oz, and our first attempts were wipes; I chose to tank Roar, thinking he was a real threat, but our successful try I tanked Straw, while Roar was simply feared around the room. The choice worked, and Roar was chain feared by one lock, Straw by another. Dedicating locks to targets worked better than just attempting to overlap fears. The fire suppression on straw seems to be about 50% successful, and he must be tanked the remainder of the fight, or he will take out healers and casters. Roar, however, can one shot clothies, but is easily feared for longer periods than Straw can be disoriented by fire.

Kara PUG	DPS	Total Damage
Starrider	378.7	161120
Thundermoon	485	153851
Mirand	351.3	145220
Thesandman	302.2	132491
Eliminster	310.2	104136
Hiddenrage	272.9	49701
Boramire	88	27205
HPS
Aezura	627.2	268569
Dniwek	496.6	183016
TaeBae	380.2	124335

Zul Aman, July 5

Stats for our trip to ZA are below; we were short on dps, and actually took along an extra healer; which worked on Nalorakk, since the two tanks are actually dps'ing the boss; but did not work well on the clearing up to Akil'zon, which was a real struggle. A paladin (Aezura) was able to control the birds well by consecrating, using ret aura, and burning up the birds when they approached. However, moving up the path too fast caused a wipe when the tanks aggro'ed too many of the elite trolls; and if you go too slow, the birds are overwhelming. We just need a slightly different approach; either a third melee dps to deal with the elites as an off tank; or more dps overall to deal out aoe damage. Next effort will be on Monday, July 7; hope to see everyone then.

Stats: Webstat July 5

Upcoming Weekend, and Standards

One of the things that caused me to leave Council of Armageddon, and come to Massacre, was the disorganization for the newer members and their failure to give folks any idea as to when they would be going to end game instances like Karazhan; they promised for over a month to bring folks in, and never did. Massacre was just starting out in Kara at the time, and I quickly became the tank along with Moonfala and Dom, in those very early days when we wiped on Attumen every week.

I promised if I got to make decisions over stuff like that, I wouldn't leave people hanging; and so every week I look to see what is going on the calendar, and I see who is attending Kara and who is not able to go. Weekends are now my times to be available to run instances, and my own interest isn't really in Kara anymore; but there are plenty who want to go, and we now have enough healers and tanks to run teams every week. I am not sure what happened with Gold, but I gave up my spot on Blue, and hope that Jumba is allowed to captain that team. My interest is in pushing new members into raids so the guild moves forward not back. Gold team is not scheduled this week, so I talked to The Elite and they have members ready to go to Kara, as do we; so on Sunday, the 'second team' for lack of a better word is forming up for the first time to jointly pursue a Kara clear; if you are a new member to Massacre, you should sign up for the chess event with Blue, first, to get into Kara and try for the pieces that drop out of that very easy event. You can sign up on Group Calendar as a standby, and put a note in your attendance line that you are available to sub in. If you are a member with blue raid gear or a dps member with extensive pvp gear, and have not been to Kara this week, please sign up on Sunday for the full clear.

Now, about standards; newer 70s are asking about going to Karazhan and raids, and I wanted to put down what I think the low average is for those players. Most of these minimums are reachable with blue equipment obtained from heroics or crafts.

For dps classes, your dps against ?? bosses should be over 380; a good average is over 400. Your average in pvp or in regular instances is not comparable since the ?? bosses are considered 72 for attack and defense calculations. Melee is not a major part of most kara fights, for reasons that pertain to boss fights; most bosses in kara inflict major damage on targets close to them, and while each fight is specific, for the most part no more than two rogues/fury warriors/ret pallys/feral cats are needed.

For hunters, partial survival spec is preferred, since on some trash mobs, we have cc problems that improved and clever traps can solve.
For healers, a rough estimate of all classes is in the neighborhood fo 1250 bonus heal; a main should be over 1400. Your HPS rate should be over 300, and preferably above 325, and you should know healbot like the back of your hand since it vastly improves the speed of your heals.
Sham healers obviously need extensive MP5 to last in any Kara fight, particularly the longer ones.
Tanks need to reach their defense cap; crits by bosses are lethal, so warriors need to be at 490, feral druids at 415. The other mitigation stats are not something I can speak to at this point.

If you have seen my past stats on fights, you can see that success comes with a combination of all the above, and no one stat carries the raid.

I am pursuing more runs with The Elite, and folks in other guilds, to keep our options more open; there should be no reason we can't run instances for being short 2 or 3 people at a time, or lacking preferred classes. Our successful run to ZA was a combination of three guilds; we could have cleared 3 bosses, but we did two successfuly, and everyone on that run now knows the clear to Halazzi. Those partnerships are vital to success in later instances, and we need help from other guilds to get there. Kara farming with guild only members is one thing; but the higher end instances will be easier with experienced members along, and our development in these instances seems to have hit a slow point.

I invite comments on this post; more people are reading this blog, and I am trying to keep it updated. This week was not fantastic for my scheduling anything until the weekend, so no sexy stats tables or anything. I look forward to our run on Sunday; and Saturday may be ZA and Blue team's Kara run, so stock up and be prepared.

Busy weekend for Massacre

Nalorakk

This has been one really busy few days; in the last three alone, the guild

a) teamed up with The Elite, and downed Akil'zon in Zul'Aman. We burned through the bear fight and took out Akilzon after making some adjustments to our attack; you basically have one person call out the incoming storms so you don't have timing problems, and ignore the birds. We did have an excellent lock along who seeded the birds, but they were mostly a nuisance. As a druid, I kept out of the fight as a tank and stuck to heals, and dps'ing in cat form when I went oom.

We then cleared thru to the 4th boss Halazzi, and failed on him when a tank fell early. He is tanked like Nalorakk, with a lynx 'spirit' that pops out to attack whomever, at 75, 50 and 25% health. He is do-able with our group tho, I am certain we could drop him.

b) Back to Gruul, because no one wants to leave a large demon by himself for too long. We downed him in two tries, the first wipe caused primarily by really unlucky shatters and loss of both dps and healer classes. The second try went ok, but not great, due to again, a series of losses of classes like melee dps; we had over 60% of the group still up, but not enough to call it an easy run.

c) Karazhan, which Blue tried but was not able to complete. I wasn't able to attend, and a new OT was used; unfortunately from the stats I watched in the fight the green beam was not picked up quickly enough and 'Spite was receiving heals. We all now how that goes. Tonight is Tuesday; after server maintenance we are back to kara for a full clear if possible, with a new healer, new dps, and our two 'old' tanks.

I am choosing to give the captain position to someone else; I have scheduling problems in the immediate future due to my RL demands on my time. I am sure someone else can handle the chores, and I am grateful to everyone who ran with my teams for all the work and success we generated in a very short time.

Karazhan rougher than usual; and then off to Gruuls

Karazhan was rougher to complete than we would expect. However a look at the stats seems to show that while our dps and heals are ok, it is our teamwork and strategy that may be reducing our success rate.

On Illhoof, we needed to adjust so that everyone (including one not on vent) attacked the demon chains immediately upon the cast. Our first two wipes come from very vulnerable chain targets dying; both priests, so cloth wearers and repeatedly targetted for chains.

Stats are here: WebStats 062808

Regardless, once we adjusted our response to the demon chains, as a group, the problem resolved. We again single tanked hoof, and on one wipe it was due to failure to heal the tank.

Then off to Shade; we actually did Shade first to obtain our port, and good thing considering the trouble we had on Hoof. On Shade, Jumba suggested, and we tried, an approach that worked given our dps problems; by halting dps on the boss at 42% until his mana runs, we prevent the Elemental/Sheep beatdown when his mana runs out. The timing of our dps will not allow us to simply burn him down and ignore the poly effect when his mana is low. We had 2 locks to banish some, fear others, and one could be tanked but not really necessary; the one problem we still had was elementals loose during a Flame Wreath, which is a true sitting duck situation. Jumba noticed on our second wipe that our dps was approaching 40% of his health rather quickly, but he was spawning elementals nearly the same time as his mana regen phase. Switching that up led to a win.

Then off to Gruuls; which was not easy, and repeatedly wiped us for a series of reasons. The tank on High King was unable to last and died several times, which spelled a wipe. The warlock was loose, killing folks off and ignoring the enslaved felhounds which were to tank him; at one point I was double tanking him and my target, Kiggler. Our success came finally after repeated fails, and once my target was down, I picked up High King and tanked him. We still lost half the group in our successful last effort, but the entire night spelled the need for greater teamwork and communication.

Gruuls stats 062808

Full Clear

Everyone got this run together, and we downed Nightbane in one try; Illhoof managed to wipe us on the first try, but two of our members had never been there, and I chalk it up to a learning curve. With these two bosses, it makes more sense to sub out a tank for a dps class, and with Nightbane it is essential to get someone in who can offheal; this is our consistent lesson since Sidewiz was offhealing me in our earliest runs, and remains true. There is just too much spread damage across all classes with that boss, and we almost inevitably lose a healer during air phases. Despite four attempts last night, this run was one shot only, and I think in the future I am going to ask our off tank to sub out unless they need gear; in which case I will switch to my healer alt for that boss.

Stats for the Saturday run are available at: Wowwebstats Page June 22

The final run on Sunday is also available: Wowwebstats June 22

Excellent run tonight; and we cleared to Prince, although we didn't down him. Stats are linked below; I am trying out Webstats as an alternative to typing in everything.

http://wowwebstats.com/kpvvxeon5w4fe

It was a good run; our new mage Belopepper came along and got two pieces of loot, and we completed chess, Netherspite, and Illhoof. For our very first week as a complete team, this was a great result.

New Blue!

Despite being nerfed and reformed as a brand new group; we were able to pull this off! We didn't get a one night clear as Nightbane gave us a ton of problems; but we cleared through Shade, and kept things moving the entire time. We had a brand new member, Samirah; she was able to pick up an epic drop to replace her green; which will put her on top of dps next time, I'm sure. We made it through Shade and only stumbled on Nightbane; next run is Sunday at 2:00 p.m., and I am sure with some adjustments we will make it clear through Karazhan.

New Blue Team	DPS	Total Damage
Sidewiz	630.6	2771163
Samirah	540.5	2543178
Thesandman	363.9	2357589
Myraa	352.2	1880085
Blarlock	380.7	1804412
Jasron	501.6	1465272
Kkoreastyle	495.7	1262829
Jumba	172.1	1066622
HPS
Nistagmus	620.6	3210019
Kokoro	367.0	1757537
Murdi	258.5	1261350
Thesandman	41.1	265958

One night clear 060308

This was our last clear as a united team; next week things will change, but for this week, we cleared Karazhan in almost exactly five hours; and equipped both Jumba and Mindaika's alt with new gear. The run was an easy exercise, really, and there were no real problems. Altogether we received 22 badges in five hours, which is better than any other instance.

Stats are below:

	DPS	Total Damage
Teilhard	811.2	4112411
Sagemage	727.7	3816319
Jasron	552.5	2857232
Thesandman	389.5	2558733
Koalat	569.6	2321767
Sorilea	697.1	2321767
Berber	1916889	846.8
Jumba	185	1135105
Erollas	741	1061404
HPS
Nistagmus	585.7	2887660
Dniwek	470.7	2137035
Steelz	484.8	2137035
Thesandman	43.1	283026

Gruul's Completed, May 31

We did it; not to brag and pretend this instance is farm status now, but we cleared it; wiped a few times; made adjustments, and dropped both High King Maulgar and Gruul.

On High King we wiped twice it was just that difficult. We were carrying a total of four tanks based on preferences by The Elite again; and the calculations were not in our favor to drop that mob easily. On the third try, my healer lived throughout the fight; our primary target died quickly enough, and my target was taken care of as the last of the adds.

I can only really speak to Kiggler as a target; he was difficult to control until he was finally attacked by the group. He will target the tank with an arcane explosion, sending you into the air even if you are backed against a wall. This creates some form of aggro wipe, and he runs off to attack random team members, and has to be dragged back to his spot. I saved my growl and energy up just before I thought he might AE me, and grabbed him right back. It is important not to keep him near any other team members, which are typically healers since he is taken back to the entrance of the HKM cave. My healer was Silverclaw; and he repeatedly died, usually during one of these AE blasts, for standing right next to me.

	DPS	Total Damage
Mindaika	792.2	2037459
Dracondrius	731.6	1872494
Sorilea	731.6	1722016
Berber	673.2	1707530
Yugami	700.1	1525864
Sithadan	677.4	1464066
Anisicoria	557.3	1288661
Sagemage	645.9	1257325
Starrider	397.2	1230850
Warhelm	438.7	1121356
Myraa	403.3	1061175
Thesandman	306.9	958599
Jasron	561.1	956998
Eliminster	371.7	930062
Varlion	275.6	787103
Igotafalafel	257.7	687656
Buliwif	259.7	626981
Kirgin	658.3	326779
Kirgin	658.3	326779
Derious	200.8	320200
Saur	559.0	245439
Arosa	765.9	219848
Steelz	26.8	45294
Nistagmus	551	648133
Chra	459	640797
Bellae	536.1	613737
Spartanvenim	387.5	398319
Silverclaw	311.3	376835
Bingo	104.7	155384
Thesandman	41	62505
HPS
Dniwek	527.2	1425483
Chra	558	1374693
Nistagmus	578.9	1210162
Kokoro	455.3	955141
Zephryn	398.6	798861
Steelz	442.3	748757
Silverclaw	386.0	726522
Starrider	42.5	131808

The stats spoke volumes in this case, as did the class choices for our group composition. As I tried to analyze in my last post, the choice of dps over tanks is one that must be made, unless the dps classes are so strong as to overwhelm the need for sheer numbers of casters and ranged attackers. We didn't, in short, need four tanks. The tanks are naturally at the bottom of the dps chart, with one at 200. We replaced a tank; and lost a mage and hunter. We replaced all three of them with high dps classes (rogue, sham, caster) from outside both guilds; Kirgin, Arosa, and Saur. These three combined appear low on the damage list because they only arrived for one fight; the final Gruul fight were we were successful. However, their combined dps was 1982 alone; and undoubtedly, given three previous wipes on Gruul with too many tanks, contributed directly to our success.

A word on druids as main tanks; early in the fight, within perhaps the first 90 seconds, Mindaika was killed right next to Gruul; and I was able to rez him. I was very certain it would be risky and result in me being one-shotted by a crushing blow if I shifted from bear form; but Mindaika is one of our highest dps members, and had to be active during the 420 seconds we have to drop this boss. I waited until a shatter ran through; and after gaining some aggro, and waiting a bit for a crushing blow (which would give me time, since he doesn't hit the OT twice in a row) and healed, rezzed, and popped back to bear form in 5 seconds tops.

Lastly, I want to point out that I received my T4 pants and shoulders on this run; and after all the effort and expense of running this thing repeatedly, I was really overjoyed to see my new stats with this gear on. First, a photo of my new gear;

The stats that come with this gear replaced a PFP set of shoulders that I had forever. Those shoulders were nice, but not raid gear, and their set bonus and so forth were next to worthless to me in raid form; since resilience and healing were never used in raids anyway. The new T4 shoulders once gemmed put my stats over the top; over 29,000 armor buffed only with my Mark of the Wild. My stats window is below.


My dodge is over 36%, and my stam is through the roof. Buffed in raid form I will be over 31,000 armor and over 18,000 health; and it is time for our guild to start farming Gruuls and scheduling runs in Zul Aman and Mag's, since this gear puts me over the top. Only Varlion has better stats overall now, and he has T6 pants and full T4 gear for raiding. The rest of us, once we obtain more of our gear from Gruuls and Karazhan, should be ready to run to the next level. This, all, since our first runs in January and February when we couldn't down Attumen.

I am really grateful to all our team members for the gift this equipment represents; I chose to roll on the pants the same night I picked up the shoulders, and felt bad about it really. Then I was convinced (by Varlion, and Nistagmus) to take the pants and pursue the secondary set bonus (one more piece for the four piece bonus) and ultimately they were right. With the fourth piece in place my armor will exceed 32000 and I will be near the cap.

Thank you all, for this.