Dkati and Karazhan...

While our guild made decent progress toward working as a group -- we failed on Attumen many times. It got me thinking about whether I was really geared correctly for Karazhan.

I ran across the following information, though I have no idea who the original author is. It was very well written, and so I repost it here, in its entirety.

End game raiding is in a lot of ways very different from the pre-BC era. Raid encounters are no longer very forgiving, meaning you can't show up unprepared and expect the group you are in to pick up the slack and still have success. Since the raid sizes have been greatly reduced, so has the margin for error. With MC and BWL raids, you could bring along 5 to 10 under geared and inexperienced people and still have success by leveraging the gear and experience from the other 25-30 raiders in the party. Those under geared and inexperienced players could then gain both of these things by attending the 40 man raids on a regular basis with little to no negative impact to the success of it. In BC, you now have to be both geared and experienced BEFORE you start raiding.

1. Look at all the loot that drops in both the 5 man normal and heroic modes and make a wish list of the items you need in order to upgrade your gear. Then start hitting the instances you need in order for you to get the gear. Granted it may take several attempts, however this is not a bad thing since you will be getting reputation so you can get keyed for the heroic instances. A good idea is to check with other guildies, they may need to hit the same instances you do in order for them to gear up as well.

2. Build up all your instance factions to revered. This will allow you to purchase the Heroic instance key from each of the faction's quartermasters. Heroic instances are very much like raids in difficulty and are a good way to get raiding type experience and gear. The last boss in each heroic instance will drop an epic item (as of 2.1 patch).

How do you know when you do have enough gear and experience? Experience and gear go hand in hand in BC. As you are building up gear, you will gain experience. There is no set gauge on this but if you really needed to put a benchmark on it, ask yourself these questions:

- How many parts of the dungeon three set do you currently have?
If the answer is less than one, chances are you are not ready to raid. If you don't even know what that dungeon three set is, then you are not ready to raid.

- Have you completed all the 5 man instances in normal mode at least twice?
If you have not then it would be a good idea to do so to help you along in your quest for gear and experience.

- How many heroic keys do you have?
If the answer is less than two, then it would be a good idea to get at least one or two more so you can start running more heroic instances. However, you really should get all the keys so you can hop right into any heroic run no matter where it might be. Keep in mind, even if a heroic may not have the gear you are looking for, you are still getting experience and reputation. Reputation in heroic is more than if you ran in normal mode. Higher reputation will make nicer gear upgrades become available for purchase from the quartermasters.

3. Learn all you can about your class. You can expand the knowledge of your class in several ways. First, find out all about the different specs of your class. Learn about all the advantages and draw backs of each type. Understand in what situations a spec is most helpful. There are many ways to do this. First you can talk to your class leader. Another way is to post on the class forums on this website. There are many other resources on the web like http://www.WoWWiki.com that can offer up a lot of information on combat mechanics to help you better understand how the game works under the covers.

- What questions should I be asking my class leader?
When talking to your class leader, here is an example of some general questions you may want to ask in order to help you figure out what you need in order to be raid ready:

- How many Hit Points should I have unbuffed?
- How much Mana should I have unbuffed?
- How much Defense should I have?
- How much Dodge, Block and Parry should I have?
- How much AC should I have?
- How much Attack Power should I have?
- How much Plus Crit should I have?
- How much Plus Healing should I have?
- How much Plus Damage should I have?
- What class abilities would help the most during raids?

Dkati and Glory Bound get some new scrubs...

Glory Bound managed to pull together a quick group, of which three of us needed to kill this dragon.



After Cherryann took a few nose dives off of a cliff, and Mordrace figured out that his goggle weren't quite working, we managed to take this dragon down no problem.

This was quite possibly the most insane thing I've seen in the Outlands to date.

It's all worth it, however, to finally look like a true rogue! As I model my new scrubs, here:



Thanks to Cherryann, Hroda, Mordrace, and Mortilent! One day we'll get Hroda her new hat too!

Dkati gets her wings... AAARRGH!

A pretty little Ebon Gryphon is now my new mount. It set me back all my gold, but it's so pretty! Note, I'm also wearing a pirate's eye patch! AAAARRRGH!

Dkati wades in the cess pool of General Discussion...

Generally speaking, the World of Warcraft general chat is a worthless pile of malcontents, teenager arguments, and general drivel. However, I continue to puruse it, on occasion, much like one might be drawn to tabloid. The entertainment value can be quite high!

Case in point, I ran across the following post. While I don't agree with point #5, for obvious reasons, it is an overall good laugh. Without further ado, from the original post by Balan, of the Infinity Guild, of the server Lethon:

Dear Devs:

Since we, the mages, are the prime provider of food and beverages on Azerroth, we demand to be given the ability to conjure substances other than BREAD AND WATER. It is clearly unhealthy for the general public to subsist on such a diet(and for pete sake, when was the last time you see a person down a non-bread/water in public?), and unless something is done, there shall be an immediate health crisis among all living beings.

Therefore, as a representative of EBWN (End Bread & Water Now) group, I demand the following:

1) The ability to conjure peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches as our next level of food for the alliance aligned mages.

2) The ability to conjure warm milk for the alliance aligned mages.

1.B in the event above mentioned meal cause health hazards, cheap Panderan take out shall be conjured instead.

3) The ability to conjure raw steak for member of horde aligned mages.

4) The ability to conjure Ale for booze/malt/industrial grade wash fluid for horde aligned mages.

4.1) A epic mage spell, "birthday bash" will conjure 20 cakes on all particpant's inventory, 20 bottle of soda, and a potion of random effects.

4.2) A second epic spell, "21 +" shall conjure steaks, cheeses, lobsters and bottle of malt together in a feast on the ground everyone can pickup.

5) Nerf Rogues.

6) At popular demand, nerf some warlock too.

That is all,

A concerned mage for better Azeroth.
EBWN.

Dkati gets Glory Bound in the Underbog...

Well, after my last guild kind of... disappeared... I was recruited into Glory Bound by my good friend Hroda!

Tonight, they were nice enough to venture into the Underbog. I had a few quests to finish up. Overall, it went really smooth, with only a couple of deaths. No new implements of death to speak of, but the last boss dropped a robe. Without any 'clothie' casters in the group, we all rolled, and I smacked a fat 100 on the roll. (It made up for the lack of anything up till that point!) Of course, I had to to try it on! As you can see in the following group picture, it fit me well.

Too bad it's, of course, rubbish for a rogue.

Dkati finds... disturbing art...

I ventured into the Shadowmoon Valley in my quest for level 70. My first stop, as always in a new zone, is to find the inn. Imagine my surprise when there was smut on the wall! These dwarves call this art!

If it had been a gnome -- that would be art. This is just disgusting.

In contrast, the bear rug was awfully sexy!

Dkati gets some upgrades...

The last few days have been good ones in the Outlands. First, I discovered that I had enough money to purchase my epic mount!

Then, on my first trip through the Mana Tombs with the Kin of the Golden Dragon guild, Donbishop gave me a really sweet, glowing offhand dagger. It's fast as snot! Great poison applicator!

Dkati gets a new implement of death!!!

In my first visit to the Slave Pens of Coilfang Reserve, I found myself grouped up with two priests, a warlock, a paladin, and myself.

It actually went pretty smoothly. We wiped once on the second boss. However, we downed the first boss with no problems. And, to my pants-wetting surprise, he dropped a dagger!

More importantly, it's a SHIV! That's right -- FEAR THE GNOME! I'll shiv you! A nice red and shiny Wastewalker Shiv.

Dkati kills her Arch-Nemesis...

That's right! After only one more try (boy it's hard to find a group!) we downed that dirty dragon. Nothing exciting came from it -- other than a little killed-my-arch-nemesis-dance.

Dkati Finds a New Arch-nemesis...

After spending a little time on the Hellfire Peninsula, I decided to take my little self, along with a group of four others, into the Hellfire Citadel!

Here's a picture of me waiting outside the entrance. It took a good while to find a healer to come along, but we finally did.



We downed the first boss with impunity, and no issue at all. We attempted the second boss, only to get whomped multiple times, so we bypassed him to take down the third boss, whom was considerably easier.



Then, we returned to the second boss. Basically, it went like this: kill the guards (easy), then the dragon descends at drops off his rider. He hits a little hard, but is easy to down. However, right as he is about to die, the dragon lands and proceed to fire breath the tank (if we were lucky) to death. Combined with a 2-shot claw damage, the dragon made quick work of us all. In fact, after about eleven tries (including time to go repair!) we called off the attempt for another day.



Boy, I hate this guy. So much, in fact, that he is now my new Arch-Nemesis (cue cheesy villain music!)

Dkati Goes Through the Dark Portal...

First coming upon the dark portal, I thought, "Damn, this thing is huge!"



But, as I walked closer, I thought, "Damn! This thing is REALLY huge!"



I should have known I was in for a surprise! But, once I stepped through, I saw a battle unlike any I'd ever witnessed!



But, I was quickly distracted with how beautful the sky was. Too bad it basically ended there, because the concentration of people was so high, that the world was slowed to a crawl. (Read: LAG FEST!)

Dkati leads Hroda through Deadmines...

Hroda is a good friend. Since she is new to the lands of Azeroth, and I am a super-uber gnome, i decided to lead her through the Deadmines to thwart the evil VanCleef!

Unfortunately, she drew a bit much aggro from a patrol. This, of course, led to an untimely, but very swift death.

Due to her inconsiderate departure, I was left to stab everything to death.

As she lay there, dying, she muttered, "Pretty sparkles." I only assume she was referring to the sparkly loot from the many dead bodies that laid beside her.



Luckily, in the end, we killed VanCleef. I managed to snag a picture of that as well!

Dkati witnesses drunken debauchery...

Well, the New Year's Eve festivities were in full swing -- and the city of Stormwind was graced with many kegs of alcohol.

And, as it usually does, the alcohol lead to debauchery of the half-naked kind! I've posted a picture I snapped of the action. Of particular note are the two dancing bears.

WoooooooO! Happy New Year!

Dkati gets some armor...

No longer must I wear the dreaded, noob-rific "greens". I have battle long and hard (well, for casual little me) to gain myself two peices of armor. Now I'm all.... purpley!

Dkati sponsers a (small) champion...

I've decided to sponser a youngin'.

His name is Qz (pronounced: cue-zee). Sound like a stupid name? Well, it is purposely so. Basically, the story goes like this:

He's a dwarf. He's ugly. So ugly, in fact, that he was abandonded by his dwarven family when he was but a pup. My family was kind enough to take him into their gnomish home. However, as we all know, dwarves are intellectually insuperior to even the dumbest of gnomes. Thus, we gave him the dumbest name we could think of.

Anyways, while he may be dumb -- he sure is strong and is quite devouted to his paladin ways. Thus, I have decided to be his patron. I will outfit him with the nicest equipment gold can buy, and then send him off to Warsong Gultch to smoosh some horde!

Dkati gets tricked...

With Hallow's End's arrival in Azeroth, all of the innkeepers are handing out tricks and treats.

When I asked for a treat of an Ironforge innkeeper, I was supplied with a trick instead! I was briefly turned into a snake, of some sort!

Dkati also gets a new implement of death...

And, what a pretty one it is! Note the now cool dark versus light effect! Sweeeet!

Dkati becomes a Knight...

Not that it's entirely impressive, however, I am now official an officer. The Alliance officer barracks, on the other hand, leave something to be desired.

Dkati can speek murloc...

Woot! Murloc translator found at: http://murloc.no-ip.org/

And now... my first attempt at murlocian:

"Wekeirgil mutrrgiml werugrgmil murule kermooglml."

YES!

Dkati is revered!

Winning yet another battle through the excellence of gnomish defense, the Alterac Valley was once again cleansed of the horde.

And, with that, they have began to look upon me in a revering manner.

What this really means, of course, is that I get a shiny new implement of death!

The Electrified Dagger!!!

Of course, this is merely a stepping stone to the The Lobotomizer. Yikes!