Karazhan will most likely be the first raid your guild enters. It’s important not to think of this instance as a 10 man UBRS run, it’s very challenging and takes a great deal of organization to complete.  If your guild does not have the key yet for this dungeon, then read Khangox's Karazhan Key Guide first.

There are 12 boss encounters and the breakdown is such:

5 Boss encounters will require off tanks (2 optional)
2 Boss encounters will require AoE
1 Boss encounters will require crowd control
2 Boss encounters will have bosses without agro management
4 Boss encounters require heightened awareness from your players.

The challenge factor heavily increases as you move through the dungeon. The first few fights are relatively non-dynamic and have been labeled as gear checks. Progressing through the dungeon the boss encounters require more awareness from your players and can pose problems for lesser groups.

The dungeon is very, very large and has many optional paths. In fact, the majority of the bosses are optional so if a guild were so inclined they could run through a handful of bosses to reach the final boss of the dungeon rather then killing each individual boss. This can make gearing up guilds a little quicker since you can skip the bosses that don’t drop loot for the classes in the raid.

Currently we know that at least two pieces of tier 4 comes out of Karazhan. However we also know that 8 pieces of loot are in the tier 4 set (the models are in the game and you’ve seen the videos of characters with tier 4 boots and belts on). However there are no set bonuses for the other 3 missing pieces in the game. Which leads us to believe that the belt, boots and bracers have not yet been added into the drop tables of the game. It’s a possible assumption that the three harder optional bosses, Nethersprite, Shade of Aran and Illhoof may drop these three pieces of loot when they are added.

The final encounter is a boss called Nightbane (undead dragon) that can only be summoned after defeating Prince Malchezaar. Nightbane is a vastly harder challenge then any of the bosses in the dungeon and though there may be groups that defeated this encounter in beta, I’ve yet to see a video of it. A piece of Tier 5 perhaps (like Ragnaros)? Who knows… what we do know is he has multiple phases, hits like a truck and in addition to being a skill check, he is also a massive gear check. The dynamic of the fight is a blend of Onyxia and Nefarian with AoE fears and undead constructs.

To prepare your guild for the coming onslaught of Karazhan I’ve added some links below. These strategies all work but over time refinements will most likely be made as shamans and paladins frequent each raid group and gear becomes easier to obtain.

Group Composition
We generally go with the philosophy of wanting one from each class, and then one additional member. Keep in mind, this is an "ideal" list, and rarely happens in practice. Things to keep in mind: You'll need 2 tanks, 3 healers and 5 DPS. You can get away with 2 healers for some of the easier battles, but to make things easy, this is what you'll need.

You may also have some of your hybrids play a duel role at some point. We generally have our pally tank some of the undead groups in the Ballroom right before Moroes. He can usually hold the large, undead groups better than our other tanks, so it speeds up the AoE process with less casualties. Also, a druid for a second tank usually has the gear to go full dps on the fights such as Shade of Aran or Prince where only 1 tank is needed.

You can certainly mix up the groups with different classes. Two or three priests for shackling in Moroes' room certainly doesn't hurt... being able to banish two or more of the elementals in the Shade fight... these aren't bad things. You mainly need to make sure that you stick with the basic rule of 2/3/5. If you have 4 prot tanks, you may want to think about letting 2 of them sit out.

Gear
What is needed? This is kind of a hard question to answer. The response question may be: how far do you want to go? You can probably do the animal bosses the first time in to Karazhan. To get attuned to Kara, you had to do enough in instances that you're probably geared enough for at least those. They may even be your groups first purple boots, bracers, and/or belt. The next few fights mainly take enough coordination, with Moroes and the Opera Event ramping up even more. By the time you're hitting Moroes, you probably shouldn't have any greens except maybe a trinket or two. And in the nights you're not running Karazhan, you should be getting the rest of your Heroic Keys and running Heroic instances. You'll should probably get a feel for what each boss will need as you attempt them. Give them a few attempts each, and don't be afraid to put them off to next week because you need more drops from Maiden or something like that.

Karazhan: Gear Needed (Work In Progress)

How to determine that your gear is ready: Divide your unbuffed total (including passive talent bonuses, where applicable) in each column by the suggested number. Add those numbers up. If your total is greater than 3, you are golden. If not, the lower your number, the more you'll feel less like an asset and more like a liability.

For Spell Damage and Spell Crit, it's ok to use one specific spell school if you have a significant talent bonus, and you use that school almost exclusively. The perfect example is Fire spells for Fire Mages.

Example:

1. Warrior A has 12,067 health unbuffed, 13,852 armor, and 495 Defense. So my gear check for Warrior A is (12,067/12,000) + (13,852/12,000) + (495/490) = 1.00 + 1.15 + 1.01 = 3.16. No problem.

2. Hunter B has 1197 AP, 16.75% crit, and 5.26% hit. So gear check for Hunter B is (1,197/1,400) + (16.75/16) + (5.25/5) = .86 + 1.05 + 1.05 = 2.96. Not ready for prime time.

Role	Check #1	Check #2	Check #3
DoT (Aff Lock, Shadow Priest)	600 Spell Dmg	5% Spell Crit	7% Spell Hit
Healer (Holy Priest, Resto Druid, Resto Sham)	1100 Healing	100 Mana/5	8000 Mana
Healer (Holy Paladin)	1100 Healing	10% Spell Crit	8000 Mana
Hunter	1400 AP	16% Crit	5% Hit
Melee DPS (Cat Form Druid)	2000 AP	20% Crit	5% Hit
Melee DPS (Dual Wield)	1200 AP	20% Crit	10% Hit
Melee DPS (2H Wpn)	1300 AP	20% Crit	5% Hit
Spellcaster (Bal Druid, Ele Sham, Mage, Dest/Demo Lock)	600 Spell Dmg	15% Spell Crit	5% Spell Hit
Tank (Druid)	15000 Health	14000 armor	425 Def (1)
Tank (Paladin)	10400 Health	12000 armor	490 Def (1)
Tank (Warrior)	12000 Health	12000 armor	490 Def (1)

(1) Required minimum. Also, Paladins and Warriors must be uncrushable with Holy Shield/Shield Block active!

Buffs
This one may depend on how much money you want to spend. Flasks are going to be great to use while you're learning these bosses. They persist through death and last for 2 hours. You'll also want an ample supply of Health/Mana pots, food (stam, +dmg or +healing), and mana/wizard oil. As you gear out, you'll probably need less of these things, but it's better to be over prepared and one-shot 3 bosses then having to keep corpse running back.

1. Attumen the Huntsman

The first boss of Karazhan is widely considered to be a gear check - your tank must have good armor, and your healers must be able to heal for a long time without running out of mana.

Their are a number of ghostly horses and stablehands. So quickly clear to him, and begin the fight.

First, Midnight is pulled by a hunter using Misdirection. The tank acquires aggro, and when Midnight reaches 95%, Attumen spawns. The tank will then use Thunderclap to pick up aggro on Attumen as well. Spam shield block and spell reflect to reflect Attumen's curse to make him miss 50% more, as well as disarming every cooldown. First DPS Attumen down to 30%, then DPS midnight down to 25%.
When midnight reaches 25%, Attumen will mount up, and be only at 30% life. Finish him off, and enjoy your reward! But beware, in the final stage he will randomly charge healers.

2. Moroes

After killing Attumen, kill the two Blacksmith pulls behind him and repair your armor with Kargath, the
Blacksmith. Work your way up the back stairs, doing many pulls, fighting chefs and servants and
everything else.

Eventually, you will make your way into Moroes' dining room. Clear the guests, Valets, and Skeletal waiters, and begin. You can use Shackles, Freezing Trap, tanking, and paladin fear as ways to manage the four ghostly adds.

You will want to kill between one and four of the adds before going to Moroes, depending on how much
crowd control you have available. Personally when we had 3 priests one time, we just killed 1 add then
Moroes, leaving three shackled then running out and resetting causing the adds to despawn after Moroes died. Once when we had less crowd control, we killed all 4 adds before going to Moroes. Either way is fine.

Use Paladin Blessing of Protection, Mage Ice Block, and Dwarf Stone Form as ways to combat the garrote.

You also need someone to help off-tank Moroes, as he blinds and gouges the main tank, causing a temporary aggro loss.

At 30%, Moroes enrages, so pop shield wall and burn him down.

3. Hyakiss the Lurker

After killing Moroes, most guilds will take a break and then go back to the entrance. Now, progress
through the servents quarters, killing all manner of spiders, bats, and hell hounds. Eventually, Hyakiss
the Lurker will spawn.

He is a simple tank and spank, and you can get so me amazing random epic drops from him, such as Plate Something of the Champion or Cloth Something of the Shadow Wrath for your Warlock or Shadow Priest.

4. Maiden of Virtue

After clearing the serpents quarters you will now end up in the Guest Chambers.

This area is filled with all kinds of hot women with loose morals. Once your raid has brought them to
justice, along with some guardsmen. Keep right along the wall so you don't aggro the rooms.

Now, Maiden of Virtue is a simple tank and spank. She deals alot of damage to the tank, keep Heal over
Times on him, have the warrior stance dance berserker rage to avoid being Repentance. Also have Blessing of Sacrifice on the warrior so the Paladin can heal during Repentence. Quickly cleanse the Holy Fire DoT when people get it.

Congratulations on your epics!

5. Opera House

Their are at least three possible encounters in this location.

A. The easiest is Big Bad wolf - a simple tank and spank, with one trick. Random person becomes RUN AWAY LITTLE GIRL, RUN AWAY! And they need to kite wolf around the room, then continue tanking normally.

B. Wizard of Oz - first kill Dorothy while Fearing Roar and Burning Strawman and have Ice Spell on
Tinhead to help kite him and then kill Toto then the other 3 then kite the Crone around the stage to avoid
her tornado which randomly change directions.

C. Romeo and Juliet - Stage 1 Juliet have a mage spellsteal "devotion" - detect magic should be up so
mage can see it. Put snake traps down to eat the random holy bolts, and have earth shock, kick,
counterspell, or shield bash ready for Eternal Affection (her heal spell).

Stage 2. Romeo - Meelee guy, cleanse the poison from the tank, spellsteal or dispel "Daring", disarm him every cooldown, and dps him down.

Stage 3. Much like a Core Hound Pack or High Priest Thekal, Romeo and Juliet must die together or they will res each other. Have the tank pick up Romeo and Juliet. Allow him sufficient time to get aggro on both, keeping them both dispelled and debuffed. Keep interrupting heals while dpsing down Romulo, then Juliet. Kill Juliet, then Romelo. Grats on your epics!



6. The Curator

A very famous fight against a large and formidable robot. Much like Vaelestraz in Blackwing Lair,
Curator is both an intensive resist fight, and gatekeeper to the rest of the instance.
He use Hateful Bolt on the person with the most HP, so have one person with alot of HP and everyone else with low HP. Use the Scryer Crafting, the Violet Badget Trinket, enchantments, and whatever you can along with Mark of the wild - everyone should have 150-200 Arcane Resist, and 250 resist on the Hateful Bolt soaker.

DPS down the arcane sparks, and then DPS the boss during evocate. You slowly and steadily take him down (he doesnt hit hard on the tank) and after 4-5 evocates, he will enrage and the sparks will stop
spawning. Continue to kill the boss, and grats on your first piece of TIER 4 LOOT! The Tier 4 gloves.

7. Tempestrian Illhoof

This boss is very difficult, he used to be easy but then they buffed him so my guild can only get him to
around 50%, but he's getting nerfed in patch 2.1 so just wait til then to fight him.

8. Shade of Aran

All you need to know: http://shadeofaranchant.ytmnd.com/

But seriously, stop dps at 45% so he can polymorph fireblast your raid, then banish and fear the
elementals at 40% and slowly dps him down to 0. Yet another resist-heavy fight. The only spell you should interrupt is Arcane missiles since these do 1500 DPS and can easily kill a target in a matter of seconds.

9. Nethersprite

I've never tried this guy since I read that it was a very complicated and technical fight, besides his loot sucks.

10. Chess

This is the most funnest event in the entire instance, it's literally free purples so just have fun and enjoy it, and don't let anyone ninja Domos Chest (though you can sell the epics to people if no one in your group needs it).


11. You Face not Malchazzar Alone, But the Legions He Commands!

This fight is super easy, he drops 3 item level 110 purples so enjoy it, he is meant to be a very simple
and easy straightforward tank and spank fight which is your reward for beating Shade of Aran.

Have the whole raid hide in the hallway, nothing can hurt them. Just use a flask on the tank and spam heal him, 60-30% the tank will take extra damage so pop lay on hands, shield wall, etc to get through it.

12. SECRET HIDDEN BOSS: NIGHTBANE

This guy enrages at 75%, 50%, and 25%. He's like Onxyia, so stance dance the bellowing roar. Pick him
up fast when he's in there air. He is needed for a couple quests. He has some good items, some crappy items. Grats on your epics!