Karazhan Raiding Guide

            As WoW classic continues to grow and offer access to more classic expansions, we are seeing more players new to the content, either because they are younger now or never got a chance to try out that bit of content for themselves. Even if it’s a raid your very familiar with, getting access to some old favorite content is still fun all on its own accord. Whether you are inexperienced or out of practice, we decided to give everyone out there who needs it a helping hand with one of WoW classic’s most interesting and challenging raids: Karazhan.

            A couple of key points to make out Karazhan before we get into the nitty-gritty. Firstly, to participate you need a player who has been attuned. Thankfully your entire 10 person party doesn’t need to be, but at least one person does and that is a fair bit of leg work all its own. Unless you have a dedicated raiding party, it’s probably best for you to tackle this quest-line yourself, so you can always guarantee an attuned party member. Plus you’ll be in high demand for your investment.

            Our second point is that Karazhan is massive. This dungeon has a huge amount of optional bosses and area to cover. While there are guides that cover the efficiency and speed routes that allow you to beat Karazhan in record time, we are going to cover the whole route. We aren’t necessarily saying this is the right way, but we are recommending the way that will get you way more loot, which is one of our favorite things in the game.

            Lastly, we have party composition. We recommend a safe build of 2 tanks, 3 to 4 healers, and 5 to 6 DPS. We also suggest you don’t attempt this dungeon without a full set of equipment at level 70 at the very least.

            The boss order we recommend, and the order we will be breaking them down into, is Attumen, Moroes, Maiden, the Opera event, Curator, Terestian, Shade, Netherspite, the Chess event, then the Prince and finally Nightbane.

            Attumen is a pretty straightforward boss with three phases. As long as your tanks keep his attention you shouldn’t have too much of a problem. The DPS will want to stay behind Attumen as much as possible and the DPS and Healers will want to remain inactive during phase changes for the most efficiency.

            Moroes will be a bit tricky, as he has a few adds he likes to bring to the fight to keep the party on their toes. One tank should focus on Moroes while the other should focus on pulling the attention of the adds. The DPS should be trying to interrupt Moroes’s summons, primarily the priest and the healer summons as they can be most disruptive.

            Maiden of Virtue has only one phase and doesn’t pose a significant threat. The one ability your party will have to strategize for ahead of time is Repentance, which is an AoE that forces everyone into a trance-like state. Avoidable for sure, but can lead to a bad party wipe if no one is careful.

            Next, we have the first event, the Opera. The Opera can be one of three shows that need to be handled in different ways. Little Red Riding hood revolves around keeping aggro on the wolf and not getting hit. Romulo and Juliette is all about making sure they die at the same time in phase 3. And the Wizard of Oz is kind of a cluster of a kill-fest so do what you can, just avoid getting hit by cyclone.

            The fight after the Opera Event is with the Curator. The Curator isn’t complex, but you do need a high DPS to make sure to bring the fight to an end before he is able to wipe your party. Fast and efficient is what you are looking for, don’t get gun shy.

             Terestian Illhoof is not very hard on his own but if you have a Warlock in your party, which we recommend you do, then this fight is a cakewalk. The Warlock can use  his sacrifice ability to singlehandedly manage all of Terestian’s spawns and essentially negate this boss. Enjoy your free win.

            The next boss, the Shade of Aran isn’t too tough either, but has the huge added benefit of unlocking a short cut if you beat him, which will be really nice is this huge dungeon. The key to beating Aran is managing spell interrupts. If you coordinate your party to stop Aran’s spells then you should have too much of a problem. Just remember that if you have flame wreath under you. Do not move or the raid will die.

            Netherspite, the next boss you’ll encounter, is interesting to say the least. He won’t gradually grow in power or anything so if you memorize the patterns of his attacks and learn the rhythm of it, then taking him down is fairly simply. Avoid the netherbreath and the beams and hit him when you can, that's about it.

            The second, and last event, is Chess. Its slightly complicated, but no more complicated than actual chess. And lets face it, the AI isn’t necessarily a grand master. It does like to use spells and cheat though, so get a couple of your raid members in there to try and monitor that. Otherwise you aren’t in any danger from this straightforward, if fun, change up.

            Prince Malchezaar is technically the final boss of Karazhan, but he isn’t the hardest, we’ll get to them in in bit. There is a lot of damage being thrown around here and its one of the tougher fights in the game. Generally you’ll want to avoid the Netherspite infernals no matter what role you are playing. Healers and Tanks will want to pull out their big guns in the 2nd phase and DPS will want to keep their good stuff for the third.

            Lastly we have the hardest boss in Karazhan, Nightbane. He doesn’t technically come last, but is part of a quest so we wanted to give him some special attention. Your healers will feel the most strain   during this fight because they need to focus on mitigating unnecessary damage, which is a lot easier said than done.

            There you have it, a quick recap on conquering Karazhan. We wish you luck in both your adventure and your loot drops.  As always, Accountwarehouse will be the safest place to buy WoW TBC accounts whenever the Burning Crusade goes live!