If you’ve listened to the show for a significant length of time, it’s really no secret that I love me some Karazhan. What is it about this dungeon that makes me keep professing my love for it time and time again?
Perhaps it is the sentimental reasons– after all, since I personally didn’t start playing Warcraft heavily until the Burning Crusade expansion, Karazhan was the first “raid” I ever got to experience.
Could it be the ambiance, the mood of Karazhan? The medieval-like castle setting with a very fitting soundtrack? The fact that you could play chess in a very unique “boss” battle (hey it rewarded phat loot) which has yet to be recycled or repeated???
Actually I’m pretty sure it was the opera event and the hilarious Red Riding Hood fight that made me fall in love with the place.
Nevertheless, the rumor factory has been working overtime on rumors of Karazhan’s possible revival in a Cataclysm patch. After all, the other 10 man raid from the Burning Crusade expansion, Zul’Aman, was announced as getting a makeover in the upcoming 4.1 content patch. Some folks have spotted a place perfect for a new portal and flight point on the beta (which is odd, because apparently you can only fly to this point, but perhaps a breadcrumb quest could lead you there a la the new Thousand Needles starting quests?).
This week, we received an e-mail on the show from uberfan Flaco Jones that was only further tin foil for our speculation hats. As you may have heard, the 4.1 patch will be bringing us maps finally for the Burning Crusade Dungeons as well as some legacy raids such as the Sunwell. However what maps were missing from the data mining when Flaco e-mailed us? Yup, Karazhan. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at the situation) since the taping of our show last Thursday, the Karazhan maps have been data mined. All SEVENTEEN FLOORS OF IT.
Despite the map unveiling, it is still fun to fantasize (and fanboy a bit). Obviously one problem with turning Karazhan into a 5 man would be it’s size. Either they would have to get rid of some major trash, or they could cut the instance up into several 5 mans a la Dire Maul or Mauradon. Flaco went on to speculate/fanfic over what a possible Karazhan could look like, which we weren’t able to read in it’s entirety on the show. Click Read More to read it now and the rest of this article…
Karazhan – Lower
Go through the front door portal, and head left. Attumen the Hunstman is up first, but instead of back tracking after killing him, you go upstairs through where Tenris was during the Scourge Invasion. Then you fight Moroes, after which all of the ghosts become friendly so there isn’t a ton of trash. Then you move on to kill Maiden, still dealing with her trash, and finishing up with the Opera Event. I know that even though Opera is so epic, it’s not really a lore-appropriate final boss for this section, but maybe there can be a lot of flavor text added to hype the Opera Event as you are fighting through the lower floors.
Karazhan – Mid
If you are just starting here, you can either take the side door portal, have Berthold the doorman port you here, or use the dungeon finder to drop you off here. A slight collapse of the main pathway forces you to travel outside and face Nightbane first. After that, you continue up to fight Curator. On your way up to the library, you can stop by and kill Illhoof, and then finish up with Shade of Aran. Not a lot of tweaking needed, as Aran is a very appropriate final boss for this section.
Karazhan – Upper
This section would be in the most need of some tweaks. You can’t just port to Aran’s room because he is potentially in there. You can’t just port outside of his door either because there is no trash so it would be too easy to exploit for quick boss farming. My idea is to use the unused gryphon roost on the outside of the upper tower. When you enter through that door, or get there through Berthold or via the dungeon finder, you are actually closer to Netherspite than Aran. So you fight through some new or relocated trash, then you kill Netherspite. After that, you head on down to do the Chess Event and then finish up with Prince. I know this isn’t the biggest section as far as number of bosses, but I compare it to Crypts which only has two bosses, and this has three if you count the epic fun Chess event in the middle, so it’s at least a little more enticing than crappy Auchenai Crypts.
So what do you guys think? Do you share a love of Karazhan like we do? Would you like to see it make a comeback in a future patch? Or do you think this is something better left in the past? Perhaps it should stop being brought up on the show so much? Let us know in the comments below!
~Rob Roberts
I expressed why I liked Kara so much in episode 16 but for me it was the ease of it compared to the 40 man hell that was Vanillia raiding. The encounters were all fun, the trash was unique throughout the instance, it was one of the first instances to feature fast travel that I’m aware of, and it had a great ambiance.
The fight that sealed the deal for me was Opera and those encounters remain the most “fun” I’ve seen in the game, plus the theater lover in me appreciated fighting on a stage even if it was for a bunch of ghosts.
Although I’d rather raid a new kara as oppossed to five man it I know that it would allow more people to see this place if it was a five man. If they are redesigning it and don’t wish to split it up they could simply have Deathwing come by and destroy parts of the castle for some reason or another which would shorten the instance removing various parts to allow for quicker flow.
Don’t be daft, Rob. Your ratings will plummet if you stop talking about Kara on the show.
I did want to mention that I usually agree with the sentiment expressed by most of the people on the show last week in regards to “STOP RECYCLING OLD CONTENT” and I am usually one of the biggest critics of Blizzard’s practice of doing that. But Kara is my one exception because it is just that awesome.
I also mentioned that gryphon roost and the portal up there in my email. It’s always been there, just now we can fly to it. Check it out the next time you’re over there.