Servant's Quarters: Spotlight on Karazhan

This is my first in what I expect to be a series of posts on Karazhan from the point of view of a mage, it won't be very helpful for people healing or tanking the encounters. But if you are a mage I hope to tell you everything you need to know.

Karazhan is a 10 man raid and the starting point of TBC raiding for most players, it can be entered after a short attunement quest chain, although it is recommended you have reasonable gear. (7k hp, 8k mana, 600 spell damage and as much spell hit you can get to get you towards the hit cap, as well as some spell crit depending on spec). There will usually be a spot for a mage or two in the raid so get yourself in there.

One thing of note in Karazhan is that unlike any of the 5-man instances you may have been running, you won't be relied upon to help with CC. You may see this as a nice change allowing you to relax and enjoy yourself or go full out on dps! On the other hand it could mean feeling less important and less inclined to focus on the task in hand, I know at times I find myself paying too little attention and tapping my Fireball key every 3 seconds or so. There aren't any sheepable mobs in Karazhan so if you want you can take Polymorph off your bars for a while. There are however lots of other things (like making water) for a mage to be doing as you find your way around the twisting towers of Karazhan (I still manage to get lost in there!).

I won't go into detail on all the various trash mobs that need to be taken care of, hopefully your raid leader will know what to do :)

There are a couple of pieces of mage loot that have a small chance to drop from trash mobs. Grasp of the Dead for Frost mages and Inferno Waist Cord for Fire mages, although I have yet to see the latter drop in my many runs of Karazhan. Both of these are nice for their relative specs if you are still wearing greenies or blues in these slots.

I will be going into detail on each of the main bosses found in Karazhan and how to overcome these encounters. I also plan on making a short guide to getting yourself ready for Karazhan.

There are two add-ons every raiding mage should have, firstly Deadly Boss Mods or Bigwigs Boss Mods, these provide on screen announcements that give warnings about certain events that occur in boss fights to help coordinate the raid and avoid mistakes. Secondly a threat meter such as KTM or Omen to prevent you taking aggro from the tank.

Fuzz