i say it depends who you go with, if your group expects a certain level of play.. like hunter and misdirect.. (think about it when would you use misdirect while doing solo? i dout its as often as you would during instances) but if it is a group who are all new to the Kara thing, and dont expect to be downing Shade within the hour i dont see a problem with just jumping right in there…

two sides of the same sheet i guess

I did only two Outland instances before I hit 70 (Ramps, MT), and then dove in head first into Steamvaults. I had spent the better part of 60-70 farming honor for my S1 glad gear, which was so much better than the quest reward/crafted crap I was running around with.

I knew I wanted to raid, so I spent untold hours reading about my class/spec, raid encounters, group composition, etc. I wanted to get to Karazhan before the attunement was removed, and although my gear was ready for the first half (as I was assured by the BT/Hyjal raiders on the WoW Warrior forum), I didn’t quite finish the key quest until 2.4 hit. I had started to do a few heroics by then.

I think it was that very same night that I got a whisper from my GM, saying that Keirana and I had spots for Kara if we wanted to come. We made it all the way to Curator, one-shotting Attumen and Maiden (no one was that much more geared than us), getting Moroes in two tries, and one shotting Oz.

Most of the really good gear I have is crafted or badge gear. Soon I can add arena gear to that list. While Kara has some nice drops in there, and my tanking set is especially Kara-heavy, it’s less of a place to gear than a place to L2Raid.

There’s a definite progression in Karazhan, which I think is an amazing piece of game design on Blizzard’s part.

Attumen is basically a minor gear check but more importantly a rather easy fight which teaches how to act in a 10-man group and how to take direction in crucial situations like aggro drops and collapsing into an area.

Moroes is a panic check, and a lesson in the importance of off-tanking. If everyone can do their assigned job in the middle of seeming chaos, and the top two on Omen are the MT and OT, it’s a tank and spank.

Maiden teaches the importance of LOS and teaches dispelling and dealing with silences.

The various Opera encounters all contain these elements, with Romulo and Julianne being a very important lesson in interrupts and controlling DPS.

Curator is a pure gear check to make sure you grind the first half a few times until you’re geared, but more importantly, used to working as a 10-man. Because without the skills you learn in the first half, the second half will be a wipe-fest.

I think Netherspite should actually be non-optional. As much as I hate the fight, it teaches several important skills, not least of which is dealing with stacking debuffs and rotation of raid duties.

Kara is not about gear. Kara is about learning enough so that when you get to the insanity of Lady Vashj and Kael’thas, you and 24 friends aren’t completely ill prepared for dealing with it.

My gear is much, much better now so I can probably get him down to almost 80% before the first evocate, and it’s easier for the healers to have to watch someone who is standing still.

I am hoping this will mean we can take him down to 20% before the first evocate is over.