Karazhan pt. II

Continued from this post.

Now that Moroes is dead, move back to the stairs position that you used for the first AOE packs and begin to clear the Ballroom to your right. Once again, you do not need to clear this entire room, simply take care of the roving patrols and the packs in the center and right of the room, and work your way around the outside-right of the Ballroom, to the stairs on that corner.

At the top of the stairs you will find more packs similar to those in the Ballroom, and you will see the option to head straight across to the Opera House or take a right half-way across the room. Clear this entire area, as you will need to do so eventually, and they will no longer respawn, as they are tied to Moroes, who is now deceased.

The path you are taking, is a short jaunt into the Guest's Quarters, your quest objective and ultimately the Maiden of Virtue, who has an unbelievably good loot table. These packs are a bit different than what you have seen thus far, and require some precision. There are two different packs, one Spectral Guardsman, are straightforward tank 'n spank mobs, that summon hound adds during combat. The hounds simply respawn after killed so just get the guards down then worry about them. The second pack consists of three different types of female mobs. Concubines have an AOE seduce, and are actually demons, thus can be Banished by your warlock. The other two have a variety of nasty AOE damage, dots and debuffs, so Shackle, Ice trap and DPS hard.

In the room flanked by the two large lion statues, on the table in front of the bed, lies the quest item that you require. Pull the three packs of female mobs, grab your book and move on to Maiden. If you are having trouble initially, you might consider getting Maiden out of the way first, because you are on a one hour respawn timer which will stop once she dies.

The Maiden of Virtue has four basic abilities, that create a very difficult fight. The first is an AOE holy damage aura that strikes anyone in melee range and extend close to the edge of her dais. This will have to be healed through and does not pose a great deal of trouble for the raid. The second is a chain lightning effect that will do massive damage if people are near one another. You are going to want no more than three people in melee, maybe four if they are perfectly spread out, or you will all get hit every time this is cast.

The third and easiest ability to counter, is Holy Fire. This is a single target direct damage spell that applies a DoT that ticks for over 1000 damage per tick. After much testing we have determined that this ability is cast upon the target closest to Maiden, but outside of her holy aura. Unlike the priest spell of the same name, this is fire damage, not holy damage, and can be cleansed. Thus, pick a Holy Fire 'tank' equipped with some fire resist, position them closest to Maiden and have them eat the fire. A good choice is a paladin, because they can cleanse themselves and heal or bubble is things go awry.

The final ability is truly a pain in the ass. Repentance causes a ten second stun upon every member of the raid. Zerk rage can break it, periodic damage can break it and bear form druids are often immune though not consistently so. Free action potions are reported to work as well, though we have not had sufficient opportunity to say for sure. Basically eat repentance, have your warrior stance dance before it hits and hope for the best.

On to the Opera House.

The trash leading up to the Opera event is some of the nastiest pulls in the instance. Skeletal Ushers hit very, very hard, and will essentially one-shot everyone but your tanks. They also have an Ice Block ability that freezes your tanks and resets his aggro. The strategy to deal with these guys requires three tanks in most cases, two building aggro individually and one building aggro on both, so that when they drop the tank, they leash to the third tank. Have your DPS hold until after the first tank transition, then burn these guys down as fast as possible fore another ice block.

Past those pulls are a few AOE packs, but most can be avoided by hugging the right wall and moving to the orchestra pit and up to the backstage area. In the backstage area, Spectral Performers and Stage hand can be pulled, and aside from one annoying ability they are quite easy. They explode when they die with a witty ability called 'Curtain Call.'

The Opera event is triggered by talking to the Stage Manager, who then proceeds to walk onto the stage and announce the upcoming performance. To this point you will be unsure of what you are facing, as this can be any of three different events, Romulo and Julienne, the Wizard of Oz, or the Big Bad Wolf. Each of the three have different strategies and loot tables.

Romulo & Julienne

The fight begins with Julienne on stage. She self buffs with Devotion which makes her spells cast much faster. This can be spell-stealed by a mage, or Devoured by a warlock Felhunter. She casts a self-heal that must be interrupted by kick, pummel, shield slam, Felhunter spell lock or mage counterspell. Sort out a rotation and she is a piece of cake. When she dies, Romulo spawns and duel wields poisoned rapiers. He casts a self buff, called Daring, that greatly increases his attack speed, thus must be Devoured or spell stealed ASAP. Cure Poison on your tank quickly and bring him down.

When both have been killed, they rez together and now you must DPS them down again, this time at exactly the same time. Start by bringing Romulo to about 30%, while having a small team keep Julienne from healing him. Switch DPS to Julienne and bring her to 10% or so then bring them together and finish them off at the same time, similar to the Tiger boss in ZG.

The Big Bad Wolf

Big Bad is a straightforward fight with one twist. Periodically the Wolf casts a debuff on a raid member and aggro switches immediately to them. They then start kiting around the stage while the rest of the raid DPS him hard. If you have done Buru in AQ20, it is the same concept only at full speed, with less room.

The Wizard of Oz

Dorothee - Has no aggro, and will move around the raid at random. Simply ignore her and heal the raid as she damages them. She summons Tito.
Roar - Warlock should chain fear Roar until he is up on your kill order.
Strawman - Fire spells cause Strawman to become disoriented and Warlocks and Mages should continue to cast on him.
Tinhead - Ice spells apply a 10% movement speed reduction on Tinhead that stacks up to 8 times.
Crone - Crone casts Cyclones that deal nature damage, and various other spell attacks.

Your Main Tank will pull Strawman, Tito and build aggro on them. Your Off Tank will place a few sunders on Tinman and then begin to kite him back and forth across the stage, while mages cast Ice spells on him to keep him at 80% movement speed reduction. Warlock chain fears Roar, and DPS hits Strawman hard, keeping fire on him whenever possible.

Your kill order is Strawman, Tito, Roar, Tinman, Dorothee. After Dorothee dies, grab Crone, get Nature Aura up and watch out for her Cyclones. Grab your Epics and move on.

To Be Continued...