Note: If you are looking for number crunching, information on what gear is best, where to stand, how to hold your face, or how much each boss hits for, you are totally reading the wrong blog. I’m sure there are lots out there that already have that information available. Strangely, that played into our success very little.

First you should start with a group of friends. Good friends. Not just some random group of yahoos you pick up from the LFG channel. Then over ale and crunchy spider surprise you should decide to try to host your own Kara raid. This is easily done IC and any tavern gathering will suffice.

After you’ve set the date and time, get together all your consumables. Food, potions, reagents, drinks, ale for the druid, and a couple gnomes. Trust me. They are consumables. Now try to set a good example and show up at the raid with all of your consumables on you and don’t leave your stash of Golden Fish Sticks in the bank.

Make sure you have a back up healer so when the priestess forgets she has a Fade button there is someone to keep the raid mostly alive. Make sure you have someone that can take a beating too. Hopefully they will stand between the monsters and the priestess. If that doesn’t work, instruct the priestess to hide behind the biggest character in the raid. Male Draenei shaman fill this role well.

Now for a truly successful event you have to have a rogue willing to go through the entire night without pants. It really does help! It distracts the bad guys almost as much as the rest of the raid. Having a shaman that spends at least 50% of the night playing with his Willy is helpful too. Just to keep everyone amused.

 Attumen the Huntsman

So, Attumen and his nag. On your way to this encounter you have to clear out a whole stable full of undead nags. There’s a sprinkling of undead people in there too. A bit of mint oil on the upper lip helps get you through the smell.

It is during this time that you should sacrifice your first gnomish consumable. Don’t worry, you have another waiting for the next round. The horses tend to like meat so it’s best if you throw him to one of those then while they are distracted by the snack, beat the Hell out of them… literally!

Rez and repeat.

Take your time getting to Midnight. It makes the encounter that much more interesting. I mean after all, having a half dozen spectral nags stomp you into the floor while fighing Midnight is always good for a laugh or twenty.

Now you don’t want the encounter to go too smoothly. Kill off a few raid members as the fight progresses, including your back up healer. As you get to the end of the fight, it is so much more dramatic if the tank dies just as Midnight is down to the last 1% of health. Then as the vicious animal turns it’s glowing devil-eyes on the priestess standing there with only a shaman between her and this slavering monster, it drops dead from a dot. The adrenaline rush can’t be beat!

You pass out some loot, share some well earned congratulations, and remind the shaman not to leave his Willy behind as you head to the next frightful encounter.

Moroes

And his Brady Bunch.

I suppose I can’t blame him for being aggro. I’d be pretty pissed too if a group of nutballs barged in during my dinner and started killing all the servants. Though I’m not entirely sure I’d just wait for them to finish and decide to go for the head table.

Now to keep things interesting, you should have a noob priestess along for this encounter that asks things like “Can I get close enough to Keira to shackle her without attracting the attention of the others?” Because the only way to find out, if nobody knows the answer, is to try. So she should creep closely on tippy-hooves, waiting with baited breath to reach that magical point when she can cast her spell.

Sadly, Moroes will see her long before that time. Don’t worry though! Wipes are part of learning, right? She should apologize profusely and with great admission of her stupidity and not do it again. After all, an apology means nothing if you keep making the same mistake, and there are dozens of other colorful and creative mistakes that can be made!

We spoke earlier about the gnomish consumables. Through various encounters of servants, dancers, and guests you should have sacrificed each gnome at least three times. Now a new sacrifice must be made. Don’t worry, Moroes will choose his own. One lucky person will be chosen to be garotted repeatedly until dead.

After shaman Willy dies about the sixth time, ask someone to summon a repair bot. Don’t want to leave blood all over that lovely skirt!

While not as dramatic as the fight with Midnight, be sure you kill a few raid members during the fight with Moroes. Don’t forget to drag him from the room a couple times so he’ll reset and kill you all with great splendor! Don’t worry, this keeps everyone on their toes and keeps the fight interesting!

Eventually with lots of luck, laughs and sacrifices of various sizes and races, you will beat Moroes and his friends. Share around some more congratulations, some loot, some of the leftovers from the banquet (waste not, want not, right?) and call it good for the night.

Throughout our whole raid there was much RP fun, good humor, and friendship. Nobody got high strung about loot, nobody got their kilt in a knot over multiple deaths. It was a raid assembled for fun. If you’ve made it all the way to the end of this post, I hope you understand that. Sure, we took down Attumen and Moroes our first time there. That was cool! But what was even cooler was that we had fun doing it. We did it IC, enjoyed each other’s company, and all left with some silly memory that will make us smile when we think about it. I’d call that a very successful Karazhan raid.

Lost Virtue extends thanks to everyone that came along and I look forward to our regulars returning next time. Special thanks go out to Bullhoof and Gildenth who packed up their Hordies for the night and brought out their Alliance characters to help a newbie raid take its first fumbling steps from the nest. You guys are great!

RP Tip Of The Day: Anything can be said IC. Be creative and make your role play that much more immersive!