When Dignitas started raiding Karazhan during the Fall of 2007, it was an incredibly painful and rewarding experience for those of us that were doing it… We spent I don’t know how many weeks getting 2 or 3 bosses down over a couple of nights. Spending well over 8 hours a week and hundreds of gold during these attempts on repairs, buffs and various other needed items. When we were able to consistently get Attumen, Moroes and Maiden down it was a divine moment for us. It took us weeks if not months of us trying to beat those bosses to actually pass them, but during that time, we geared up, we learned the fights and we learned about ourselves and our fellow raid members.

The original raiders in Dignitas worked like crazy to do heroics for gear when we started, not only that, but back then you needed higher reputation to even get into the Heroics, meaning you spent more time in instances learning how to play your class in a group environment. I hate using this as an example, but just recently we had a hunter in Karazhan who wasn’t even aware how to “Misdirect” yet not a few weeks earlier that same hunter posted on the forums how upset they were that we were thinking of putting certain requirements to even go into Karazhan and that they prided themselves on how well they played their class. This doesn’t mean that this hunter is a bad person or player… it means that they have not had and/or taken the opportunity to run instances. This is particularly true in guilds such as ours as most of our players are adults with kids, jobs and a mortgage, meaning that their available block of time to play can be limited and they can’t always commit a block of 2+ hours to run an instance but they might be able to set aside 60 or 90 minutes to grind.

The fact that people don’t need to get attuned anymore for Karazhan means that as soon as people hit 70, they want to go in, forgetting that by skipping that all important gearing up step, they are not helping the group overall. A bad thing about Karazhan is that people see it as “This is where I need to get my gear from!”… They couldn’t be more wrong, first they need to get some good blues which will get them geared to do “Heroics”, running the “Heroics” will get them better gear AND badges letting them purchase even better gear, which in turn will get them geared for Karazhan. And most importantly of all, it will teach them the very important roles they need to fill in those groups.

I’m in the process of leveling my third toon to level 70, she’s presently level 67. While I hate to admit it, I’m using a guide to level her up… Her whole grind from 1 to 60 was done almost entirely using the guide but when I hit Outlands at level 60, I made a point of hitting as many of the level appropriate dungeons as possible. Not for loot but to figure out how an Elemental Shaman works with the other classes in instances. I still use the guide, but whenever I can I make sure to try my best to get groups together to run instance.

Now, I could grind to 70 and dive into Karazhan as soon as I get there. I have the advantage of knowing all the boss and trash fights but that wouldn’t be fair to my guildmates as while my knowledge of the instances itself is advanced I want to make sure that I bring everything I can to my 9 friends. As such, you can be sure that my shaman will be keyed before she steps foot into Karazhan.

Kharpern