Karazhan Progress!

[Ciderhelm]

Last night we did our first foray into Karazhan. Progress:

Attumen
Moroes
Maiden
Opera House (Wizard of Oz)
Curator
Chess Game

We still have to finish the final boss which, the Prince, then the somewhat harder optional bosses, Nightbane, Netherspite, Shade of Aran, and a couple others.

[Ciderhelm]

Prince Melchazaar is down. He was definitely not a pushover. :)

[Ciderhelm]

Terrestian Illhoof (or whatever) dead, easy.

Shade of Aran dead, very difficult.

[Ciderhelm]

Netherspite almost down, easy fight, just tired after Aran. Nightbane cannot be summoned by us this week (we need to kill Prince Melchazaar again, so next raid week). There is a great "cutscene" where you read from Medivh's Diary and get a vision of him just obliterating Arcanagos, a Blue Dragon, who presumably becomes Nightbane.

Shade of Aran is definitely the hardest fight for learning in the zone, although Melchazaar I think might be actually more difficult. This, in the sense that Melchazaar is more similar to Gothik or Sapphiron in that he has to be brute-forced, whereas Aran is more like Four Horsemen where you have to be really precise in your actions, but you can repeat it easily.

The Shade of Aran has a laundry list of abilities:
Flame Wreath
Blizzard
Frostbolt
Fireball
Arcane Missiles
Arcane Pull/Arcane Explosion
AOE Counterspell
AOE Polymorph
AOE Pyroblast
Conflagrate
Summon Elementals (x4 Water Elementals)

He also made reference to Aurila's Atiesh, or at least that seemed to be the case, by asking if that was a sign that Medivh sent us to see him.

Definitely worthy of one of the great Mages of the past, and of Medivh's Father. :o

[Ciderhelm]

We killed Netherspite in a handful of pulls after picking him back up. Very easy by comparison to Shade; an intelligent fight, though. This means Karazhan has been fully cleared except for Nightbane (who we unfortunately were not aware of the quest sequence regarding him or we could have had him this week).