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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsIs Karazhan no longer for entry level raiders?
by Zach Yonzon 
May 18th 2008 at 4:00PM
For the past weeks, we had been doing 2 1/2 hour Karazhan for badges, and for the most part we made sure that our raid members were equipped in Tier 4-5 or better. We'd turbo pull to bosses with a Paladin tank and Disenchanted nearly every drop because, really, no one needed anything from there. We ran it for badges and wanted to breeze through the instance as quickly as possible. We would wince if we brought someone who wasn't familiar with the strats or had more than a few blues.
Ironically, these people who have blues are the ones who actually need Karazhan more. The PuG we brought who'd never been to Karazhan was a Hunter who got an upgrade right away when Attumen dropped Steelhawk Crossbow. Even though it took us twice as long, the run actually helped gear a few people. It got me thinking about how Karazhan is being run now. At this stage in the game, where progression has dispensed several tiers of gear above what Karazhan offers, has Karazhan's original role of being an entry level raid changed? Because Karazhan is the most efficient instance to farm badges, most people -- such as our raid -- don't want to slow ourselves down by bringing undergeared players.
Karazhan loot was intended to gear up people for 25-man raids and quickly became one of Blizzard's most popular instances. In fact, Karazhan is run more than ever, but probably for the wrong reasons. Now, many players run it for badges, and the players who actually need upgrades from the place find it more difficult to find spots in raids. Fewer and fewer guilds are moving through Karazhan as progression. Has Karazhan now become the playground of geared raiders rather than those only beginning to raid? While I'm personally not too keen on bringing undergeared players for an epic train ride, it makes me wonder about how badges have changed the purpose of Karazhan for many players.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Instances, Raiding
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 3)
Grais May 18th 2008 9:48PM
I found it interesting when I pugged out my healbot priest the other day. The raid leader told me a couple of bosses into Kara that he wanted to sub me out because I was still in a couple of greens... he ignored the fact that my stats were quite even with their mainhealer, but infact, i was out healing the main. People are finniky about Kara nowadays. If I miss a guildie run, I have trouble finding solid groups, eventhough I perform at a solid level and have full-cleared Kara with lesser groups.
Doma May 18th 2008 5:56PM
How my guild runs Kara:
tuesdays: kara grps 1 + 2: badge runs/DEing
sundays: group 3: gear-ups and alts
brb, invites for kara in 5 mins :)
Pheonix May 18th 2008 6:37PM
Well for me, I am geared in all blues with the best gems and enchants that money can buy. I am actually past the 490 def requirement for kara. I have threat meters and all the do-dads that every pug has ever called me "noob" for not having. I have attempted heroics and kara and never make it past the second or third pull.
Basically what happens is, I get a tell saying this group needs a tank for Heroic whatever or an invite to off-tank kara. (Which for one reason or anouther, I am still yet to even open the gates to kara as the stupied group always fails.) Anyway, I say yes and always inform the party that I am new too heroics and lack the experiance, I am always given a plethoria of great tanking advice from the mages and priests. I then re-enforce the reason for my joining is to get the experiance of the instances and that if they want a seroius run to find anouther tank. Oddly enough, I am always told that every wants to help me as tanks are in such demand on my server. Oddly enough, by the second or third pull I am told that I can't tank. Now, this really irritates the heck outta me as for any non heroic such as SH or whatever im asked to come and relieve the tank who doesnt know what he or she is doing.
What I see is happening is that people forget that WoW is just a game and take it way to damn seroius. I would love to "LEARN" to be a tank, if giving the chance. I am sure the first tanks going into kara and heroics wernt that great either.
I also give up on joining those so called "Freindly-helpful" guilds tha do daily runs for fun.
kgn May 19th 2008 12:34AM
thats why my pally's parked
ShuManFu May 19th 2008 1:28AM
i guess you are a warrior.
read this http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t18771-protection_warrior_guide/
basically.
If you are getting beaten to death work on your stam/avoidance
if your friends are getting beaten to death work on your threat generation/taunting.
working on increasing your threat generation is tricky as a warrior learning make sure you mark (it's helpful easily identifying what you are tab devastating and whacking).
Just be patient it takes a bit of practice.
If you a fustrated with warrior 5 man tanking and still want to tank. reroll a paladin / death knight they are and will most likely be much easier.
if all else fails blame the dps for pulling stuff outta ur agro range.
Iwanttobeasleep May 18th 2008 11:00PM
I remember how pissy our raiders got when we started making sure that Kara teams, when we were just beginning 25 mans, always contained a few people who actually needed the gear. Nobody cared about using it for progression, they just wanted badges as quickly as possible.
Maarr May 18th 2008 6:54PM
I play wow solely for PvP at the moment. And have done for around 8-9 months now. This is due to my day job and me working as freelance in the night time. Arena is more flexible than high end raiding.
I use karazhan as a means to get hold of all those nice items like dory's embrace and angelista's revenge. Which help give an edge in Arena. We never ever really take consideration to blue geared players or alts due to everyone wanting the instance to be done inside 3 hours max.
But for someone like me with dwindling WoW time I think it can be justified. Afterall I do remember running Molten Core over and over even after I had all the gear i required from there, just to gear up new friends and new members to the guild. Even when we were pushing C'Thun!
Sibe May 18th 2008 7:16PM
I'm going with Pheonix on this one. People take Badge runs WAY to seriously now, Blizzard has really stuffed up. I get mocked on my Rogue who's in the best pre-raiding/heroic gear you can get, I do some of the best DPS in heroics/karazhan yet I still either don't get in because it's a badge run (which I have no problem with, completely experienced and skilled player) or at the end get told that I was carried, which is BS since I do half/most of the damage there.
Blizzard has to look what they've done when people with good enough gear can't get into groups because their badge run, or because people's standards have gotten higher because of this welfare crap and in general because they prefer to have the geared guy even though the other guy is more skilled and in more pve gear.
FireWraith May 20th 2008 7:15AM
What happens when you make lots of Tier 5/6 gear available to people for running Tier 4/Heroic instances? People aren't going to run the hard stuff to get it - yes, badges may drop in 25 man raids, but as the OP stated, it's far easier to farm places like Karazhan for them.
What Blizzard really should have done is made gear available that requires 'badges' which drop in instances of comparable difficulty to the gear bought with them. Kara badges should buy Kara equivalent gear. SSC/TK badges buy SSC/TK equivalent gear. This reduces the overall time you have to farm an instance to get your raid geared up, while still keeping it so that people focus on the raids they can accomplish.
Angus May 19th 2008 8:59AM
I was in a run with an Alt of a player in full S3. The man knows how to play toons very well and can adapt to changes in the situation. He was a Rogue in Blues and greens as well. He ended up being 3rd on the damage meter behind myself and a warlock.
If you can manage to keep up in runs with less gear, don't take any crap from them. Do your job and enjoy yourself. The moment that someone makes such a comment, ask for a meter to be posted. When you are sitting at #2 or 3, ask the people below you how they are carrying you when they seem unable to beat your DPS in better gear. When they can't make a good excuse you are vindicated. Just state you never want to hear that you are being carried again, you are doing your best and it appears to be good enough to hold your weight.
After that the people that weren't jerks in the run will make sure the jerks shut up.
Sneakstar May 18th 2008 11:05PM
In regards to gear and Karazhan,
Our guild has only just recently been performing full clears.
Last week,we had to pug a few people do to our 1st group having some RL committments. This week it didn't go so well and yes we pugged a "noob"
However on a previous run a month or more ago we pugged a lock in mostly all greens, who was just freaking fantastic, his dps was so so as to be expected from his gear. He played his class exceptionally well and was a great support class and knew how to play his class well.
Tim May 18th 2008 11:09PM
You kind of have to be an idiot not to pull your weight in Kara these days, no? Maybe it's because I've cleared through Black Temple and up to the Sunwell, but I can take my barely 70 mage with 600+ damage and do adequate DPS in that joint. It might be the fact that I have 2 characters exalted with the Violet Eye, but even with alts, that place shouldn't take you more than 4 hours unless someone is forsaking the Shade Chant.
My guild does Kara on the weekends for fun, and with the occasional mocking the crap out of my gear on my lesser alts, it's a nice 2.5-3 hour break to shoot the breeze with friends and get some badges. If PUG's are stressing you out, there are plenty of guilds on every server that do it for fun with alts, and quickly.
Zach May 18th 2008 11:10PM
"You kind of have to be an idiot not to pull your weight in Kara these days, no?" Yes. Unfortunately, we were with idiots.
Angus May 19th 2008 9:06AM
"But I was standing in fire!"
Playing the Shade Chant doesn't help if they are too stupid to understand it 3 times in a row...
It does help, however when you have that same person be the one to pull shade and you don't heal them through the arcane missile volley the first time. 9 people can kill Shade pretty easily then...
adder May 18th 2008 9:36PM
in the last 3 months 700K people joined WOW... that means 700K people that will be new to Kara. Just because you have done your time in Kara does not make it any less of a place than when you first ran it.
Gryphon Hall May 18th 2008 10:35PM
Our GM (who is a pally tank) did just what you said: PUGged with high-level players and got such a reputation that he became their tank of choice for Karazhan from Attumen up to Shade of Aran even though he was decked in pre-Patch 2.2 blues.
Because of his reputation, he was able to get me and a few guildies who were geared in quest item blues and greens into raid spots in Karazhan with other guilds needing spot fillers, helping us get geared as a result. On HIS reputation alone.
Always good advice!
jtrain May 18th 2008 11:27PM
"While I'm personally not too keen on bringing undergeared players for an epic train ride"
This attitude really irks me. I understand that if you're on your 50th Kara run and have it on cruise control that newbs might slow you down, but come on. I've been in Kara runs where people sigh, complain an otherwise act like a jackass just because one or two people haven't been there before. The new players feel embarrased and either get defensive or nervous and screw up. No help to anyone.
There is a difference between players that are impatient and/or immature and players who simply haven't been there before and may be undergeared. Take 2 minutes, explain the fights and move on. If it takes you 20 more minutes to do the run, so be it. Those newer players will really appreciate your willingness to help them along.
Solitare-sp May 19th 2008 10:10AM
It really starts to annoy me that people devalue the content and the acheivement just because of their personal position. Kara is still the progression for new players and its still a challenge for those who don't know the instance and don't have the gear to overpower it.
If you've got T6 and know the place inside out, then sure, you'll blast through it. But to those new to it, and which have just started it with lower gear. Don't devalue it. It;s the same place as you struggled with over a year ago.
superfrank May 19th 2008 6:11AM
haha you're TLDR version was just as long as your original!
hence the tldrtldr I guess
gareth May 20th 2008 10:59AM
I still love kara, my main has switched from a shadow priest (tailoring +S1 items = fully equipped), to a protection warrior (if its not for PVE its generally useless, so much harder to gear).
Our guild is casual and generally works well, I have no problem with taking someone who is starting out on the raiding path for the first time. The problem I do have though are the ones that just grind some mobs somewhere to level 70 and turn up at a raid in a collection and crap and expect the rest of the group to just pull them through the whole lot.
As a tank you can get 490+ defense with ~11k health and decent avoidance stats by just relying on quest rewards, if you go in to kara with that you can offtank everything and not slow the raid down. But I have seen people turning up with less than 490 defense and just expecting that the rest of the raid don't mind wiping, or healers with zero mp5 expecting the other healers to take up the slack - to me that's the worse problem when kara starts to become farmed.