Karazhan Difficulty and Length

[Apanonar]

Isn't this exactly what people wanted? Small group content that can be progressed to as an alternative to raids?

[Nikkaszal]

They aren't. They finished it but said they would never do it again because it just wasn't fun. These are the top players in the guild who all completely finished the Proving Grounds as a requirement to join the progression raid team. They are 7/7 in Heroic Nightmare and are currently doing Mythic. If they say it's too hard and no fun, I know that I and the other members of the casual raid team who are only 2/7 in Heroic Nightmare will really dislike it. Blizzard will see people struggling and nerf it in the near future. I have no doubt of this.

Kara is about on par with Heroic EN for difficulty - enough that you have to actually pay attention to what you're doing instead of just brute-forcing it but not so wildly overtuned that you cant clear it with players who are decently geared and have a good head for mechanics

I find it very difficult to believe that 7/7 Heroic people who are working on Mythic could find it "too hard" seeing as the gear checks are slightly more forgiving than Heroic EN.

[Redsoldier06]

Ran this with 3 875+ ilvl dps, 860 tank and 867 healer. Took about an hour 50 minutes, basically two hours.

Minus the couple of wipes on a few bosses here and there it was overall simple, dps was extremely strong. Tank and healer did their part, only part that was difficult was learning the mechanics and the fact we kept stopping to look at the zone and such because it was so awesome looking.

[Okacz]

"Yay they're doing a long dungeon again!"

And now everyone is complaining.

Just another example of people eating all the 'member berries and thinking bad, old, ideas are great and should be brought back.

A few guys on forums are complaining, that doesn't really count as "everyone".

Karazhan is an easier raid, the only difference is that instead of 10 you need 5 people. Bosses take longer and are more punishing, the scope is way bigger, loot is better than dungeons. Who exactly is complaining about having an optional piece of semi-raiding content in the game?

[Puri]

So from my experience: Karazhan has a steep learning curve. Once you understand the mechanics, the fights get fairly easy with decent dps.

Normally you'd learn those mechanics by trial and error, but the long ways you have to walk after a wipe makes that quite tedious, so that you at least read the dungeon journal or look at guides (which also removes some excitement for me).

Another thing: Even when the some fights are similar to old Kara, it's better to forget the old tactics. Prime example might be Maiden, if you think you can just stand in the flame patch for her cast (as you did it before) you are gonna have a bad time.

What I also didn't like was the inconsistent damage of trash. For some trash packs you don't need a healer at all, while others (spiders say hello) cause insane
damage on the tank. That's obviously also a question of learning the dungeon, yet the difference feels immense.

And then technically there are also some bugs, like our fire mage managed to aggro a group from the first floor through the roof at Attumen.

Generally the rather high base itemlevel makes it worth running for the relics, but actually the loot table is rather small and for some classes/specs you will only find a handful of items in the entire dungeon that might be an update (obviously at adequate comparable itemlevel).

[Aurora]

This thread just shows that Blizzard can't win no matter what they do.

Either content is too easy and people complain, or it's too hard and people complain.

The bulk of complaints in this thread are that the content is too time consuming, unforgiving and not rewarding enough for it to be worthwhile to them. This shouldn't be confused with "nerf now". If kara was intended to be of niche appeal for small dedicated 5 man groups then I think Blizzard have done an excellent job, if the intent was to appeal to the wider community for supplementary gearing or a fun thing to do in pugs then the criticism is valid.

[Tang0]

Took over 4 hours with pug of a 867 fury(myself), 877 prot war, 860ish disc priest, 862 elemental shaman(a bad one) and an 862 fire mage(a bad one). By bad I mean stable sub-200k dps. 150-180 st at times. So many wipes I felt like quitting. Overall 800k dps from the group + steady interrupts from at least 3 players seems to be plenty. Curator and last boss were a real wall since losing a person mid fight(not a healing issue) is pretty punishing.

Any new info on unlocking nightbane?

[Naiyano]

Took over 4 hours with pug of a 867 fury(myself), 877 prot war, 860ish disc priest, 862 elemental shaman(a bad one) and an 862 fire mage(a bad one). By bad I mean stable sub-200k dps. 150-180 st at times. So many wipes I felt like quitting. Overall 800k dps from the group + steady interrupts from at least 3 players seems to be plenty. Curator and last boss were a real wall since losing a person mid fight(not a healing issue) is pretty punishing.

Any new info on unlocking nightbane?

Yes i think so. 800k+ should be more than enough. Also interrupts are pretty important. Curator is a dps check in my opinion. If you can manage 1 Mio+ goup dps the boss just melts away. If your dps sucks and people don't know when to use cds you are in trouble. Filling the room with blue shit doesn't help neither in this case. Maybe a lot easier with 3 ranged dps.

The last boss i found suprisingly easy. Do not get knocked off the ship, use BL in the third phase after you pulled all adds to the boss and just zerg him down. It was no pug in my case though.

[Deleted]

Did it last night with Fury warrior, Sub Rogue, Prot Warrior, MM hunter and Holy paladin.

Kara is VERY melee unfriendly I found.. having so many melee, no Brez and no BL was tough although next week I expect to do it quicker now that I know what to do/what certain trash does.

Run was 4hrs 20oddish minutes... Which honestly doesnt bother me, it felt like a raid anyway.

[K4sk]

Karazhan was quite difficult for my pug. Quite a few mechanics are super unforgiving and the DPS checks seem high for being a mythic dungeon. Obviously the DPS checks will be a joke for a group of 870+, but seeing the ilvl dropping in there, you can't really expect people to be much higher than 840ish.

Also, fuck trash respawning in there and fuck the long corpse run.

[Chrno]

Reading posts about it taking 3 / 4 hours make me want to go even more
can't wait ^^

gonna attune myself tonight so i can hopefully go this weekend ^^

[Lalabaer]

I think I spent about 6 hours in Kara yesterday, but it it could have been way less.
We wiped at lot on maiden because the DPS literally couldn't understand the mechanics even after I've repeatedly told them what to do.
I kicked them all and remade the group so that took some time.
We wiped on Moroes and on Curator a few times until the Tank left.
The new bosses all had some wipes just to see how they work and how it feels to fight them. Mana Devourer was actually quite easy because everyone was well geared.
Shade of Medivh gave us some trouble because we took some time to work out his fire spell and then we had a lot of bad RNG.
The last Boss also took quite a few tries but now that I think back on it I don't think it was too hard.
Group composition could have been better and if everybody knows what they are doing it won't take a very long time although I probably won't take anyone under 860. I know that that's quite high but I don't want to take the chance of taking a bad player that's also badly geared.
I'm a 864 Holy Paladin if anyone cares.

[vitor210]

I spent 5h yesterday in Karazhan with several groups (people constantly left after wipes) and only managed to kill the first 4 bosses until even I was tired of wiping on Curator and decided to leave.

This definetly is tuned for people with Heroic raid gear, can't wait for the nerfs. As a dungeon its probably the worst in game, even worse than the 2 Violet Holds. Unforgiving mechanics, too much trash, too big, everything in there is poorly designed to be a dungeon.

Hard content is great, hard mechanics are fun, but unforgiving ones aren't. Fights like the Opera Westfall Story is realy fun, but dps race like Moroes or unbelievebly hard mechanics (simple on text and theory, but unforgiving once 1 player fucks it up in just 1 second) like Maiden are so frustrating. The only people who can clear this in less than 4h are either over gearing it by 20 or more ilvls or are simply lieing for internet e-peen

[Norome]

Wowhead says sth about a checkpoint, where youre able to split the instance. Is there any information about how this works?
Is it like the old back-entrance?

Up until the Curator, anytime you die you spawn at the very entrance to the instance (just as in EoA), which makes wipeing on Maiden pretty time consuming.

After you kill the Curator and enter the portal behind him to the NEW Karazhan, your "spawn" point switches to there.

And since there is a TON of trash everywhere (which will unsurprisingly respawn after a while), if you want to split the run I suggest going for Curator as the first "end" boss and then the rest.

[Deleted]

The only people who can clear this in less than 4h are either over gearing it by 20 or more ilvls or are simply lieing for internet e-peen

Or maybe you're just not as good as you think? A pretty common problem these days...

[Grindfactor]

Cleared it yesterday, whatever you do... dont be a melee heavy group.. youll have a stupid rough time with it if you are. It boggles my mind at how stupid they were to make it so if you dont have 2 ranged youre pretty much screwed.

[Mesoforte]

Cleared it yesterday, whatever you do... dont be a melee heavy group.. youll have a stupid rough time with it if you are. It boggles my mind at how stupid they were to make it so if you dont have 2 ranged youre pretty much screwed.

Demon hunter, death knight mage. Curator was definitely least fun boss because of it.

[Icoblablubb]

Cleared it yesterday, whatever you do... dont be a melee heavy group.. youll have a stupid rough time with it if you are. It boggles my mind at how stupid they were to make it so if you dont have 2 ranged youre pretty much screwed.

DH,WW Monk,Frost DK as the one above me said Curator was a pain but besides that i don't rly see the pretty much screw part with melee group ..and if you are talking about Maiden hitbox is big enough to stay out of bolt jump range

[Confucius]

does anyone know if the game still has 2 hour trash re-spawn timer since it's gonna take 2 hrs plus

[Phototropic]

Trash respawns weren't an issue for my group last night, from starting the atunement quests (and buggering around during cause lolpvp) to completing the eyeguy (we had a few wipes here & there on bosses and a couple on trash... those runs back wow) it took us about 3.5 hours!

Edit: guild group, did all quests together including the 4 mythics (whilst doing the weekly), can't remember the bosses we wiped on exactly, and our average ilvl was probably about 860 (blood dk, holy priest, marksman, enhance, & fire mage). We went in blind, which seems quite common in this thread, because we wanted a first-hand experience blah blah blah.

On the subject of running back, there needs to be a portal here & there cause wowzers it takes a long ass time.