dark spot in the corner

A tank’s blog, mostly…

In a Nutshell

The Curator guards the upper reaches of Karazhan and is considered a major gear check. You need a certain amount of damage per second in order to handle the adds he spawns continuously throughout the fight. If your raid does not kill the Adds quick enough, the damage is summing up quickly, and your healers will run out of mana.

Rundown

This is a phase that consists of two alternating phases. The phases bound to The Curator’s mana pool and occur in fixed intervals. Every 10 seconds, The Curator will spawn an Astral Flare that needs to be killed as quickly as possible. The summoning consumes 10% of The Curator’s mana pool. So, after 100 seconds, when he reaches 0 mana, he will enter phase 2, the evocation phase. During this phase he will do nothing and just stand there for 20 seconds. He will be taking 200% increased damage during this phase. After 20 seconds his mana will be back at 100%, and he will enter phase 1 (the flare phase) anew.

As soon as The Curator reaches 15% life, he will enter a weak enrage. This will increase his melee damage and the frequency of the Hateful Bolts. When he enrages, he will receive increased damage and will no longer spawn Astral Flares. Just bring him down quickly.

Watch out for

Watch the Astral Flares when they spawn. If they are heading your way, either Fade to make them pick another (not-so-squishy) target, or shield yourself to prevent the brunt of the incoming damage.

When The Curator enters his evocation phase, always put a Shadow Word: Pain on him to help the damage a bit. Additionally, if you are below 50% of your mana, sent your Shadowfiend in. The increased damage debuff on the curator will grant you some hefty mana regeneration (We are talking of more than 1k mana per hit!). If you are in risk of wasting mana regeneration try to put some Smiting to The Curator. Avoid the usage of Shadow Word: Death, the backlash might very well kill you.

Healing Roles

If your tank is decently geared, you will require only one dedicated maintank healer. The remaining healer(s) should be assigned to heal the raid.

You may assign a so-called Hateful Bolt tank. This ability will be used by The Curator on any player with very high aggro and life. The exact evaluation of the target is unknown, but some offtank (may be a warlock) damaging him constantly works well. It is the job of the raid healers to keep the Hateful Bolt tank at full health.

When The Curator enrages at 15% life, concentrate your healing on the maintank and the Hateful Bolt tank. They will suffer increased damage, and loosing them in the enrage may very well lead to a wipe.

Rewards

It’s Tier 4 time! Cross your fingers for the Gloves of the Fallen Defender (trade them for this ). If you are no tailor, you may also find the Pauldrons of the Solace-Giver to be a very nice upgrade.

So. It’s live. I had not yet the time to try everything out, but enough to make some first wild and unsophisticated guesses and assumptions.

Magister’s Terrace

The Magister’s Terrace is very fun and fresh. It’s new, it’s shiny and it’s challenging. My healing gear is quite potent, but if you are new to a dungeon you recognize one thing quickly: It’s not so much about the gear, it’s about experience. The better you know a dungeon, the easier it will be to heal. The bosses, and the trash as well, will give you a nice ride if you don’t know them. Be on your toes and try to absorb any scrap of information that is handed out to you. It’s worth it.

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In a Nutshell

The undead dragon Nightbane is accessible once you have completed an internal quest chain that starts with the quest Medivh’s Journal. Since Nightbane is a dragon, he will use a lot of typical dragon abilities, like Fear and Cleave.

The fight consists of two distinct phases that change back and forth depending on his hit points. The encounter will start around 30 seconds after someone used their Blackened Urn, when Nightbane will land on the the terrace and needs to be tanked during this ground phase. Whenever he loses 25% of his health points, he will take flight and the airborne phase will start and last for approximately 30 seconds.

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In a Nutshell

The opera is accessible as soon as you have killed Moroes. You need to talk to Barnes, the Stage Manager, in order to start one of three possible events.

This post is about the most third possible event, Romulo and Julianne. It’s a three phase encounter that starts small but builds up as it goes along.

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Hello out there! I’m still alive and well. Well, not that well, but good enough. Had some "downtime" last week, that kept me away from work and blogging regularly.

On a positive side-note, I should admit that my psychical blockade of leveling Rancora is gone for good. The last few days have been quite fun and very productive.

I hit 65 just this weekend and it’s fun to do, after all. I have no idea what kept me from going on. But whatever it was, it’s gone now.

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