Saturday, July 5, 2008

Stopping by Karazhan on a Foggy Evening

Ever had to chain-trap during Moroes? All the way through Moroes? You get a ton of buffer time on your trap cooldown at the beginning so it's all easy, and then that cooldown dwindles and dwindles as the fight goes on and by the end you're pulling out all the stops with your Concussive Shot and extra Distracting Shots, and frantically running around hoping nothing stupid happens.

Feels absolutely great afterwards when you've successfully pulled it off though. Oh, let the 'locks and the boomkins and the rogues have the top of the DPS chart for that battle-- you, meanwhile, you know that you've got that CC on farm and that you're a big reason why things went so smoothly.

Lemme tell you a lil' about Karazhan; I started playing WoW a couple months after Burning Crusade was released. I was level 6 and everybody else was just getting to 70 and just getting geared up for raids. I walk into Stormwind for the first time and hear the names of these seemingly mythical legendary bosses being whispered in trade chat. Moroes, Maiden, the Curator, Shade of Aran, Prince Malchezaar. This makes an impression on you. You know nothing about the game but you know about this rogues' gallery of bosses that, in your tender young eyes, only the greatest of the great are ever going to see. And to down one of those bosses must be an amazing feat of pure unadulterated epic-ness.

And now you're giggling at me because Karazhan is the Deadmines of level 70, and yeah, I'm giggling with you.

But you gotta put yourself in my shoes for a second and realize that when this stuff sinks into you and makes an impression on you from basically day one-- it doesn't go away. Yeah, it's just good ol' KZ and I won't deny sometimes it does make me want to smack my head repeatedly into the wall, but it holds a special little place in my heart. All these months later the music still gives me goosebumps, and all these months later a successful boss downing still feels special.

Bigger raiders can have their Black Temple or their Sunwell Plateau that they're all proud of; me, give me my crazy lil' tower in the middle of nowhere and all its storied villains.

Pike/Medivh: BFF!



(P.S. I originally wrote a poem parody to go along with the title of this blog post. But then I opted not to post it because I think I want to polish it up. Maybe if you poke me nicely, I'll finish it and post the thing.)

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

*pokes*

(but nicely!)

Anonymous said...

When I started playing, my friends were in the mid-40's, and guild chat was filled with references to ZF and Booty Bay. As a level 11 hunter, I ran from Darkshore to Ratchet, and took the boat over, just to see what was so special there. I'm pretty sure I ended up getting swarmed by gorillas when I walked out of town.

After that, I had this mental countdown going as to when I could start questing in STV, and I still view level 46 as the "growing up" level.

Anonymous said...

I know what you mean... I know I wont ever hit the "big time", so I just need to appreciate those little moments of brilliance. eg; For the first time that I noticed, I finally went over 1,000 dps.. on a trash fight, but I noticed it and was excited. Next trash mob I hit 1,100 dps. Once again, nothing to write home about, but I was stoked.

Anonymous said...

Ah, those heady days in the distant past, when Ragnaros was all the rage. C'thun was mentioned in whispers, and Kel'Thuzad not at all.

Oh, and *Pokes*

Anonymous said...

Instance chain trapping is why I always carry around 2 pieces of the Beast Lord set. Combine its reduction of trap cooldown with Resourcefulness in the Survival tree (yup, I'm Surv spec) and as long as you don't mash the wrong button at the wrong time, chain trapping is a breeze. ^_^

Pike said...

@ Amur - Yup, I've got two pieces of Beast Lord too. Don't leave home without it. I'm proud to wear those two blues.

KC said...

The two friends who got me into WoW are big PVPers and every time I saw them on, they were in Alterac Valley or talking about it. That was my big one — the first time I entered the battleground, I think I squeed and bounced around at my desk the whole time. I still get that "OMG I'm in AV!" feeling whenever I go in. /lame

I think it's cool that people get excited about the game, no matter what they're getting excited over. There are so many people who will clutter trade chat or the forums with how much they hate the game.

Unknown said...

Even when you've got Kara completely on farm, chain trapping an add all the way through Moroes is very impressive. Well done!

Amava said...

You captured the spirit of Karazhan well. Sure, most people consider it the "Deadmines of level 70", but for those of us late-comers, it is still on a pedestal.

Its unfortunate that most of the WoW population becomes so bored with content so quickly, and sometimes looks down their noses at the people still excited by Karazhan. My guild has been raiding Kara weekly since January '08, farming the place first for gear and now for badges. We do early ZA and cleared Gruul for first time sunday night.

But, KZ always brings me back to the beginning and reminds me of when it was all brand new, and those stairs leading up to Moroes were just the most magical thing, as you had no idea what your tank was going to pull over the edge to you. The music never ceases to remind me of the beginning of my raiding career, regardless of the fact that it started a year later than most people.

Anonymous said...

Let's see...I think I've done a half-dozen runs in Kara on Osprey. There's nothing there for me anymore except badges (Talonis still can use a lot of stuff from there, of course). But I still get jazzed about a kara run.

Well-geared healer LFG Kara...

Anonymous said...

For me it was talk about the Opera Event. As soon as I heard about it, I wanted to go to the opera in game. It still gives me a buzz, trooping onto the stage with the curtain drawn, wondering which one we are going to get.

Oh, and chain trapping through Moroes is my job. I usually spec into BM/Surv, to get clever traps. You lose a bit of dps, but its great utility for early kara and heroics cc. For the price of a couple of dailies I often spec back to BM/MM for the later half of kara, as we split it over 2 nights.

Anonymous said...

I'm so envious of all of you. We haven't even been to Kara as a guild yet. A few have been there in PUGs and our main tank is an over achiever in Mags. But for the majority of my guild Kara is still the big thing.