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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsNo more attunement for Karazhan?
by Matthew Rossi 
Feb 28th 2008 at 3:15PM
That's what the fine folks at MMO Champion are telling us, anway - on the PTR, the attunement process for Karazhan has been removed. Or more accurately, altered... in order to get into Kara, one person in the party has to have the Master's Key, making Karazhan more like Upper Blackrock Spire. The attunement process to date isn't horribly restrictive... run Shadow Labs, Arcatraz, Steam Vaults and then Black Morass with the proper quests and bang, you're keyed. I can see this coming in handy for newly 70 alts or guilds who are trying to run up to Karazhan at the same time, and it's clearly part of the process of opening up content that we saw when SSC and TK were opened up, or that we will see with Hyjal and the Black Temple in patch 2.4 as well.
On the other hand, is this just going to lead to groups running Kara without much grouping experience and then complaining when they have to start coordinating to run it? I'm not personally worried about that, but I try and anticipate these things. Eyonix comments on a thread discussing it that it wasn't about difficulty, but rather accessibility.
With Kara opening up like this, will we see more people pushing through to Sunwell faster? Is the patch signaling that Wrath of the Lich King may be closer than we think?
Filed under: Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Instances, Raiding
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 4)
Vinna Feb 28th 2008 4:10PM
I'd rather see them shorten the reset timer for kara than to unkey the instance. ZA is what? 3 or 5 days?? why not do that with kara. That would serve more to get more people in there. We're running 2 groups but it's a lot of juggling with the tanks and healers, now if the timer was shorter those tanks and healers could go twice in a week making room for the DPS people to get in there once.
Manatank Feb 28th 2008 4:16PM
As a tank, please don't make me run that more than once a week. I get that we need to keep gearing people up, but Kara is such a boring 3-4 hours.
sloiegin Feb 29th 2008 11:50AM
Would you rather run Kara once a week for 6 months, or a couple times a week for 2 months?
I'd prefer to do the latter.
Rob Feb 28th 2008 4:21PM
Kara to me is fun. I'm exalted, been there for months. It hasn't gotten old yet. I love seeing the purples drop and know i'm helping guildies.
But...yeah i'm torn. I dont' want idiots dinging 70 and demanding to go to kara. I do want to actually play the game and not worry about endless keying runs. My old guild spent half its time keying people (still does). But for alts, I can totally see the nerfing of attument process. For myself, if I were a guild leader i wouldn't take some bloke off the street in 70 greens and think he's ready for kara. He's not, go back and farm some shit for at least a few purples. I was in half purples before I stepped into the place.
Alch Feb 28th 2008 4:21PM
This will be nice for gearing up some of the newer 70s. We did Kara last night with 9 people and ended up DEing all the drops.
Monergist Feb 28th 2008 4:40PM
Why do any old world instances require attunement? I would love to fight Onyxia but as long as the attunement is required it may never happen since I can't convince anyone to set foot in black rock again. No one runs Onyxia anymore because people hate the idea of running around Black Rock Mountain when there's spanking new instances in Outland that actually provide experience and loot for them.
Theserene Feb 28th 2008 5:36PM
We (for a laugh) got most of the level 70s in the guild attuned to Onyxia. I NEVER want to set foot in UBRS again, the horde attunement is stupidly long.
Compared to that, Kara is a doddle
Vinna Feb 28th 2008 9:43PM
good reason to do ONY! with 7 people it's like 25g, nice boe blues for alts and Nexus crystals.. oh, and 18 slot bags.. tee hee.
KateJaneway Feb 28th 2008 4:40PM
Only if I can get the status "Wasn't Too Lazy to Do Five Level 70 Instances on Regular".
George Feb 28th 2008 4:47PM
*sigh* Great. Now all the impatient kids in my guild can start demanding raid spots upon hitting 70 in their quest greens with wrong stats.
I can enjoy as they run around hitting everything that's CC'd.
On second thought, no. They can suck it up and go through the attunement process. It's not that hard and they might, shockingly enough, pick up some gear that might actually help them contribute in Kara.
It's bad enough dealing with new tanks that squeak through the attunement process with
jonathan.account Feb 28th 2008 4:55PM
uh tell them no. seriously whats the big deal, if a group of undergeared 68-70s wants to run kara-- i don't care. they will not get far and i wouldn't run with them. I'm certainly never going to pug kara.
George Feb 28th 2008 5:07PM
Yeah, brilliant. Except they're in my guild and I don't want to deal with their adolescent angst driven hissy fits when I tell them they're not geared enough. Or when I feel tough love is in order, after the third wipe they keep swearing up and down that they're ready.
Having the attunement in place keeps them out of my face and in level 70 instances long enough for them to gear to almost acceptable levels.
It's nice that you can be so rude, but some of us actually have to deal with people in a civil manner. And who the hell was talking about joining a bunch of undergeared newbs? I'm talking about undergeared newbs trying to get into my established Kara group, each member of which has put solid months into preparation.
L2Read.
arcady0 Feb 28th 2008 4:57PM
I think this will be a real value to guilds that want to do it together. Large guilds will be able to let more of their members go through if they don't have to keep returning to earlier instances, especially with alts of players who have already done it. Smaller guilds will be able to get through as a group and not worry about PUG breakup - as long as one member has the requirements down.
It might be nice if attunement for these things was account based rather than character based - once you have a single character attuned, any character of level is also attuned. That still means you have to know what for enough to get there, but you don't have to repeat it over and over again if you have a lot of alts. If not for attunement, it might be a good idea for access to heroic mode.
Sneakstar Feb 28th 2008 5:35PM
.."It might be nice if attunement for these things was account based rather than character based - once you have a single character attuned, any character of level is also attuned"..
You sir, are onto something i think! With some fine tuning i think that would be a great way to keep more people happy.
To those of you that have been raiding for a while and have the gear to take more then 1 char along as dead weight, - i envy you :( and i can see how this would be a great way to gear someone in a real hurry
Selly Feb 28th 2008 5:17PM
I'm also torn on this. I'm not sure if it's because I busted to get two chars attuned and now I don't have to get my 65 druid attuned or what.
I think that the attunement allowed people with green have a chance to get some blues in order to have some hope at Kara with a new guild starting it up. However, for those guilds that have a number of new 70's alts at varying stages of attunement completion it's a good idea. Now I won't have to bug my guild for a BM run for the 3rd time in a week on my noob druid because I wasn't ready for it earlier in the week when someone else needed a BM run.
Milktub Feb 28th 2008 5:29PM
Is Kara attunement really that hard? Kill some ghosts. Visit some dude outside Dalaran. Run a couple instances on normal (or heroic if you're feeling excitable).
Sorry, but if you can't be bothered to spend a couple hours running 5-mans, you probably don't have the patience to run a 10-man.
JParris Feb 28th 2008 9:38PM
For me it's less that I just don't want to run the instances than I'd rather not do content I've already done dozens of times. :P It gets a bit boring after a while.
Theserene Feb 28th 2008 5:39PM
At the moment we have the more diplomatic way of having to tell people in the guild that no, they cannot MT Karazan for us in quest greens when they have only just hit level 70.
Dealing with the ones who cry about needing a flying mount to get part of the key is fun enough....
Then again, we already have Kara PuGs running on our server so I don't see it making much difference. If people want to go in undergeared and not knowing the encounters then it's their repair bill and not mine.
Chainfire Feb 28th 2008 6:07PM
Ok can we remove the attunement for the old raids now? I want to go look around those places just for the hell of it, I can get into BT but not fight Onyxia?
MartinC Feb 28th 2008 6:08PM
Bad, bad, bad idea Blizzard. As Kara is the first "real" raid many people will experience, I believe it is still necessary to put some sort of checkpoint in place first. Many that have not raided have this false sense that raiding is "easy", and that all you have to do is step into Kara and get free epics handed to you.
I can understand removing the attunements for the later raids, as by then raiders will already have a good grasp on raiding, and understand that gear and skill make a big difference, but for their first raid, most players need some serious hand holding.
We have strict gear requirements for our Kara groups, and sticking to them makes things go much smoother. I would never accept anyone wanting to join us in greens. Having the attunement there helped support that. Removing the attunement altogether is just gonna mean the forums will be full of fresh 70's complaining that Kara is "too hard". Please, we really don't need more QQ.