Breakfast Topic: So how are those keys coming?
by Chris Miller 
Mar 1st 2007 at 8:00AM
So the expansion's been out for over a month, you've gotten all your raid keys done, right? RIGHT? The overwhelming looking raid attunement chart hosted by WoWWiki seems intimidating, but a lot of things turned out to be easier than I'd anticipated. For example, you don't need to complete Shadow Labyrinth, The Steam Vaults, or Arcatraz for your Karazhan key. The Shadow Labyrinth key is at the end-boss, Murmur, but the fragment in The Steam Vaults can be reached without actually killing any bosses, and the one in Arcatraz can as well. The reputation buildup just from doing the usual instances and quests was enough to provide me with almost all the reputation I needed for heroic mode keys, but I haven't started any heroics yet.
How are those keys coming folks? Horror stories with that pickup group in Steamvaults got you down?
Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Raiding
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Brim Mar 1st 2007 8:52AM
Arcatraz is the new Black Rock Downs for the attunements.... Noone wants to go there.
Still need it for my Kara attunement
BaboonNL Mar 1st 2007 8:52AM
Never had any problems with Steamvaults pugs.
On the other hand, I've never even beaten High Botanist Freywinn in Botanica. -_-
Brad Mar 1st 2007 9:15AM
Arcatraz is easy. The room with the first boss has a few challenging pulls. After that just run up the ramp, hope the sentry doesn't have buggy aggro and collect your key frag.
The irnonic thing about that instance is that it starts out very annoying and very challneging. However, after the first boss it gets much, much easier. The two demon bosses are both ok fights. Haven't made it to the last boss though. We wiped on the double sentry pull due to a trigger happy hunter (SIGH) and then respawns made us call it a night.
Skitamofo Mar 1st 2007 9:11AM
Still need the Arcatraz key piece and then Black Morass which I hear is very hectic(and racist to gnomes apperently).
vincenzo7 Mar 1st 2007 10:32AM
I don't do pickup groups
Mats Mar 1st 2007 10:05AM
Im in Karazhan, our guild has downed a few bosses now. Never took the last boss in Arcatraz, but still have not found a group to take him down.
The strange thing is that I can't find a group to do Shattered halls. I have they key and everything, but since it's not part of the Karazhan attunement, no one wants to go there.
Harpo Mar 1st 2007 10:42AM
Hands up all those who are fed up with Black Morass...
Lostmimic Mar 1st 2007 10:19AM
Meh the faction was easy, I got my Karazhan Attunment and all 5 heroic keys. Currently my focus is getting exalted with my 2nd faction for the rewards and focusing on the opera event (first week we got romulo and juls) this week little red riding hood :D
Malaka Mar 1st 2007 10:46AM
Romulo and Julianne is easily the hardest of the opera events. Once you down them the opera event just doesn't seem as ominous. Also, the Big Bad Wolf event is fun, Deadly Boss Mods for the win. Anyway, I have all my heroic keys, as well as Karazhan, and I am working on finishing the heroic quests to get the Magtheridon quest.
Ragbar Mar 1st 2007 10:47AM
I'm barely into honored with all the required factions, except for Caverns of Time. Black Morass was easy as pie when I did it with my shadow priest and some of our best guildies. Only took 3 or so runs after hitting honored, mostly due to the 8000 rep you get for completing a quest there.
Having trouble finding time to both PvP grind, and do various instances for rep.
Chleo Mar 1st 2007 10:50AM
Funny how all those attunement charts fail to specify that you need to kill Magtheridon to get into Tempest Keep :P
Heyasuki Mar 1st 2007 10:55AM
In my guild we have the most trouble in Shadlow labs & Black Morass. both instances just seem to need really good group make ups to go well.
Black Morass is more buggy then anything too many times I've heard from guildies that it bugged out around either boss 2 or 3.
As for Keys, some instances no one likes to run like Shattered Halls.
Were in Karazhan now :) got down first 3 bosses and after much torture The Big bad wolf.
Meg Mar 1st 2007 11:06AM
There is a very strong group of us in my guild with all of our keys except for the Heroic Thrallmar key. We are headed into Karazahn this weekend/first of the week. I can't wait!
Kaziel Mar 1st 2007 11:55AM
I'm taking it slow. I just got to my Shadow Labs key a few weeks ago, 70 last weekend, and I'm on the final step of my Shattered Halls key quest. Probably going to complete it some time this week. Next up will be getting the Arcatraz key, followed by the Karazhan key.
Dave Mar 1st 2007 11:47AM
are people still complaining that it LOOKS daunting, before finding out that it's a routine thing that you'll ultimately get done with almost no effort?
Getting the Kara key is easy. Steamvaults takes an hour and a half with a TERRIBLE group, 45 mins if you've done it before and don't need to explain the 3 pointlessly simple tank and spank boss fights. (has an instance ever had easier boss fights?) Shadow Labs sucks a lot if you don't have the right CC, but still isn't too tough. Arcatraz is a huge pile of BS, but if all you're after is your Kara key you only have to beat the first boss.
Black Morass is probably tough if you don't know what to do, so you need to go and wipe a few times to really get all the people in your party to figure it out. (some people, I dunno they just think they've got it all figured out before they start and don't want to listen until they wipe 3-4 times doing the same stupid wrong tactics, which is why I think too many people hate the instance even though it's quick as hell and fairly easy).
Rep attunements? Cake. Assuming you have any idea about the loot at least, which I guess most people may not. You'll get 1-2k worth of rep per instance run. This means you'll need roughly 4 runs through Shattered Halls (assuming you did all the Hellfire area quests and got max rep), 3-4 runs through Steamvaults (depending on the armaments you got, and how much of Zangarmarsh you did of course), 4-5 runs through Setthek/Shadow Labs (not many quests for Lower City rep unfortunately, but you can knock a bit off). and since you're having to run through 3 instances for Sha'tar rep already... a minimal amount of runs through the rest of Tempest Keep for rep there. It's almost so trivial that it's not worth mentioning except to scare off the weak and that doesn't bug me much.
Where you should start crying, is Heroics. They're painful, they're difficult beyond anything else in the game including Raid content so far (can't rely on other people taking up slack!) and actually present a significant challenge for a lot of classes to actually complete.
Write something else up in a month when you actually get to the difficult content. Until then, nothing at all about the attunement process is even close to difficult or problematic.
Halicante Mar 1st 2007 12:27PM
The keys are easy. I have all of the heroic ones and the kara one. The heroics are really fun. We did underbog heroic last night and it was a blast because we just didn't know which added skills each boss would have....things like the random charge from that bear with the hunter boss which punted me like 50 yards are hilarious. However, bog lords that hit for 10k, not so cool...but I digress. Anyways heroics are ftw. If you have a good group then it's a guaranteed free epic for someone with only like 1.5 hours of work.
Our guild is coming along well in karazhan...definitely the worst part there is the 30 min trash respawn timers. It makes it hard to get more than an attempt or two on a boss before having to do a complete trash reclear. We arent hardcore, but we're getting about 3-4 new bosses a week down, so we're happy!
Oh and Black Morass is a buggy pos. I've given up on it until they figure out how to make 3 portals not open up all at once.
Todd Mar 1st 2007 2:46PM
"Oh and Black Morass is a buggy pos. I've given up on it until they figure out how to make 3 portals not open up all at once."
Um, this means you're not killing fast enough - its not a bug, its part of the event.
Argent Mar 1st 2007 3:49PM
i had all my hard mode keys and my kara key within 10 days of BC shipping. as i've said before -- those things look daunting, but really aren't. the real cockblocks on the road to mt. hyjal are killing the big raid bosses, such as nightbane (done; can be a pretty doable fight for most people) and grull (a fight so annoyingly dumb it makes me wanna just give up on wow.)
Shat Mar 1st 2007 4:07PM
Two words:
LFG Arcatraz!
Halicante Mar 1st 2007 4:39PM
"Um, this means you're not killing fast enough - its not a bug, its part of the event."
Nah, we ran it for a whole afternoon over the weekend for rep. Most of the time we'd nuke everything fine and have plenty of time to drink and move around like usual, but every few times on the 12th rift, it would bug on us. Mobs would evade and be unhittable (but they'd be blasting us) and all three rifts would open and the last boss would pop out, all in the span of a few seconds. We opened a ticket and they said it was a known problem and gave us the usual spiel about how they were working on fixing it blah blah blah.
We also had it bug where there was a wait of about 5 min in between each rift. That one was weird too but at least we could complete it.
At lot of the instances are really buggy >< laj's room in the botanica, the mechanar elevator, and thrall bugging in ohb and thinking he's ready to go to the barn when he's already at the inn, just to name a few.