WoW BHA: Kara Requirements
Thursday, August 30th, 2007 - 1:13pm
Okay, so as explained in the post made by Kiri for our static Tuesday and Sunday runs, here are some requirements. I will be researching other classes to determine the suggestions and minimum requirements. So far, I have a relatively good understanding for Tanks and Healers, and the reasons for those numbers:
Tanks:
Paladin
Defense 490
Mitigation 102.4%
Health 11,000
Armor 12,000
Warrior
Defense 490
Mitigation 102.4%
Health 12,000
Armor 12,000
Druid (in Bear form)
Defense 415
Mitigation 30% - Dodge & Miss only
Health 12,000
Armor 16,000
Defense of 490 is required to prevent a Critical Hit (2x damage) from any lvl 73 or higher enemy. Mitigation of 102.4% is needed to prevent Crushing Blows (1.5x damage). The scaling health is specific to each class. Druids need the highest since they cannot avoid being crushed. Paladins need the lowest due to Ardent Defender (30% less damage under 35% health). Typically a warrior should have 12k health due to the normal hits. Druids have an ability that reduces the chance they get critically hit, therefore, only need a 415 defense to become immune to critical hits.
Mitigation is the total Miss, Dodge, Parry & Block including CONTROLLED abilities such as Shield Block, Holy Shield, etc, that can remain up all the time. Druids require only 30% due to their lack of Block and Parry, but have the higher health and armor to soak the damage.
These numbers are necessary because if the tank dies in a couple quick hits, the rest of the raid usually follows. Even after these numbers, there is a fluke chance that you still get crushed or critted, but as per WoW, the chance is approximately 0.0001%. So you're likely to only see it happen once in several nights.
Copingsaw wrote:
Honestly, I think if we could get Krindle to tank Al Qaeda, this world would be a much safer place.
Super K - The "Anti-Wipe"
Healers:
All Healers
Health 6,000/7,000 (gear that gives 7,000 unbuffed health is needed later in Kara, but beginning, only 6,000 is needed to survive a hit or two from most encounters where they could be in danger)
mp5 100
+Healing 1,000
Spell crit 10%
Exceptions: There is an offset between +healing, spell crit and mp5. A person with 100 less +healing is okay with additional mp5, but I'm not particularly sure about what the rate is. I'd suggest around 1mp5 = +5 healing = 0.05% spell crit, so a person with 20mp5 higher would be okay with 900healing, or 14% spell crit. Bare minimums should be +500healing or 50mp5 (but the other should be much higher). Likewise, druids who typically use HoTs are not as required to have a high spell crit, but will likely stack more +healing or mp5.
The reason healer need to have these stats is simple; you have to keep the raid alive. There are several bosses that are multi-target, no aggro list or just endurance, and if you run out of mana quickly, or can't keep up with the damage, everyone dies. Dying only fun the first few times
EDIT: As per experimentation, spell crit standard reduced from 15%
Copingsaw wrote:
Super K - The "Anti-Wipe"
DPS:
All DPS
Health 6,000/7,000 (gear that gives 7,000 unbuffed health is needed later in Kara, but beginning, only 6,000 is needed to survive a hit or two from most encounters where they could be in danger)
Hunters
AP 1,800
Crit 20%
Hit Rating 80
mp5 100
Casters
Mana 8,000
Spell Crit 20%
Spell Damage 750
Spell Hit 10% (Many say 16% is needed, but others show no issues with as little as 5%, this is the median)
mp5 100
Moonkin
Same as caster, except only 600 spell damage (based on gear available to the class)
Melee
Hit Rating 150
AP 1,400
Several WoW posts explain that mages and warlocks can run Kara naked and not have any problem. However, we don't want any riding coattails and everyone should be able to attain the numbers above by running normal 5mans. As well, several battles in Kara are DPS races, and if our DPS is not up to the task, regardless of how good the healing and tanking are, the encounter will be a lot (Such as Curator who goes Berzerk increasing his damage by 500% after 10 minutes).
Copingsaw wrote:
Super K - The "Anti-Wipe"
Thanks for putting this together Krin.
I'm the only regular shadow priest so perhaps this only applies to me but here goes (and this is my opinion only):
Shadow Priest Kara Requirements:
Health: 6,500
Mana: 8,000
+Spell Dmg: 650 pre-curator; 800 curator and beyond
+Spell Hit: 6%
Pre-Curator are fairly easy numbers to hit. Just about any DPS class should be able to join us for Kara pre-curator and feel like they can make a meaningful contribution. Curator is a whole new ballgame and you need to be fairly well geared.
I know for mages and other casters the requirements will be similar but a premium is placed on crit, which isn't so important for shadow priests. I would guess 15% crit but maybe Vel can pitch in with some comments here.
Cope should have an addendum for his character...
10,000 HP and a crap load of armor when the group is fighting Skeletal Ushers.
IronClad Online: PurEvil
I did some research on classes I wasn't as knowledgeable about and found some consistancy in the casting classes. I'll add what I found above, along with other classes.
Copingsaw wrote:
Super K - The "Anti-Wipe"
FWIW, Thurg had about 100ish MP5 and about 900 (950 on the most recent run) +healing buffed for most of the Kara runs I've been on. That seemed to work reasonably well by virtue of being as efficient as possible in my choice and timing of heals. Holy crit chance was about 17-20% depending on group makeup (moonkin buff and the like).
Dunno how that fits in with the requirements, but I think those "requirements" listed above for healers are pretty hefty.
The requirements shown above are actually lenient. +1000 healing, 100mp5 and 15% spell crit are easily attainable just by running 5mans. I found many more strict posts showing Pally healer requirements at 1200healing, 150mp5 and 25%spell crit unbuffed.
EDIT: I am being rather strict though on the tanking classes, but from experience those numbers are very accurate. Prot Pallies are still the most difficult to gear up, so it's actually me being tougher on myself then anyone else
Just in case anyone is wondering, these are the UNBUFFED numbers. Please do not include BoKings, Stamina or Spirit buffs and the like.
Copingsaw wrote:
Super K - The "Anti-Wipe"
Good lord, you've got to be kidding. Unbuffed, my +healing is around 850. MP5 is around 80ish. I'd argue that my usefulness in Kara is either due to my mad skills, or due to the numbers being more flexible than it seems.
Aside from simple gear requirements, you must be keyed to enter the raid.
Arcane Disturbances and Restless Activity are the pre-requisite quests available at level 68 (according to wowhead.com) outside of Karazhan.
From there, you will be eventually required to run all of the Shadow Labyrinth, part of the Steam Vault, and part of the Arcatraz. This will give you all of the parts to forge the key. After this, you must travel to the Caverns of Time to complete the Black Morass. However, you must be attuned for the Black Morass by completing Old Hillsbrad and rescuing Thrall first.
Additionally, you need a flying mount to enter the Arcatraz.
These may seem like very steep requirements but they go very quickly. The hardest one is simply getting the flying mount. But there are many guildies with large amounts of gold who would no doubt help getting your mount paid for.
"If Blizzard announces a subscription fee for Diablo III we will have to build a second Internet to make room for all the complaining." - muttonchop
The numbers are a LOT more flexible than that. Hell, I've done a full kara run with people in greens and blues and 4 healers. It's 75% teamwork 25% gear. What is posted up above is what some people have WITH Kara gear.
Unfortunately, if I slash my wrist with my lightsaber it cauterizes instantly. - PurEvil on emo Star Wars plots.
1/2 right on this.
Those numbers are all attainable without ANY drops from Kara. Likewise, those numbers in most cases have been downgraded, or taken as the lowest found to pull your own weight.
The part I agree with is that it is 75% teamwork and 25% gear. But lately, we've been running with about 99% teamwork, because people don't have the gear they should. For instance, Krindle before Kara had 500 Def, 103% mitigation, 11k health and 12.5k armor. Now, Krindle has 499 Def, 104% mitigation, 12.9k health and 14k armor. These runs should be going smoother then they have been, and this is a check to make sure they do. The only amount that changes with Kara drops for all classes is unbuffed health, which is to run Aran (since with buffs, you need to have over 8k health just to survive).
Also, keep in mind that when we first started Kara, we were running 3 - 4 healers. The last run with did with Jut and Hanta only healing, and were able to do the same content (everything up to and including Opera). But Jut and Hanta are both higher alot higher then the recommended, and surpassed those numbers before stepping foot in Kara.
Another way to check your gear, is to make sure alteast 75% of your gear is blue or better. A few greens are allowed, but they should be exceptional greens. Otherwise, everyone else has to pick up the slack.
Copingsaw wrote:
Super K - The "Anti-Wipe"
When spec'd holy my priest was 1100+ healing with mainly greens and few 5 man pieces and 1 or 2 leftover T2 pieces so it's not that hard to reach those stats without being in Kara. Of course if you're running Kara you've a chance at even better gear. Running the 5mans though is key to getting the gear to push through Kara. Not only do you get your rep you get decent gear. In fact some of the gear out of the 5 mans is better than what you can get in Kara especially the Heroic runs.
Gamer Tag: Rantyr
I know this is going to sound snippy/sarcastic, but I genuinely don't mean it the way I know it'll sound. I just don't know how else to phrase it.
If these are the requirements (unbuffed), then I'll be ready for Kara when Wrath of the Lich King is out.
The only times I foresee the possibility (and again, with the way things are going, I simply can't promise any availability) of making any GWJ instance runs will be Friday or Sunday evenings. And with how rarely that'll be plausible for me, and how rarely I'm able to get into a group going someplace that'd upgrade my gear, and how rarely said gear actually even drops when I'm there (I haven't gotten an actual upgrade for a long time outside of quests), then I simply can't be "geared up" for Kara until probably a year from now or more.
I genuinely hope these requirements are simply idealistic goals for people to aim for, and aren't going to be applied as actual requirements to join in on the Kara runs. I've been on nearly half the Kara runs from when we started going, and we were quite successful. That's part of the fun of GWJ: doing what we can with what we have, focusing on the fun more than on the loot. That's why I'm in this guild. I don't want to see us start having stratified participation levels within the guild. It's not fun being left out due to not being geared up enough, and I know that I'm not the only person who's perpetually behind the gear curve. I don't mind being the shrimpy kid on the football team that the others know isn't necessarily as good as them but he's just a great person to have on your team due to team spirit. I do mind being the shrimpy kid who's picked last because the team is run with a "must-win" mentality.
Like I said, I know this is all going to sound snippy and sarcastic, but I really don't have a bad attitude directed anywhere here. I'm simply voicing concerns.
That tends to be my view on it as well. It's rather hard to find groups for 5 mans (on my server anyway) and even when you do a lot of them suck. Last night I was in a sethekk halls run on my rogue with 4(!) pallys. Not pleasant. Frankly you're shooting way to high up there for kara requirements. I would say those would be good for the 25 man content as a minimum though (except the +hit on Melee. Rogues needs 300, not 150.)
As soon as you make it more of a job than a game you will lose.
Unfortunately, if I slash my wrist with my lightsaber it cauterizes instantly. - PurEvil on emo Star Wars plots.
If you're undergeared, we have plenty of people willing to help run 5mans to get others up to speed. Several of us have been doing it for months. All ya gotta do is be there to get the gear, or the rep to buy the gear. If you like, I can do an Armory on you and figure out some easy gear to get. Likewise, we have a master enchanter, some great blacksmiths, and the like able to up your gear to hit numbers that are a little out of reach. Scryer/Aldor rep is even good for some of the inscriptions that can really buff you up.
Just ask us where or how to help ya out and we'll get ya there.
Copingsaw wrote:
Super K - The "Anti-Wipe"
That's part of the problem; re-read my post. I'm thinking my concern has been answered though.
Sunseeker ran into the gearing up problem and it rather burned me out for a bit, to be honest. 14 runs into Mech to finally get the Jade-Skull. 7 runs at SV with no Devilshark yet (or the BPotR, for that matter). 3 shots at SL for the Figurine with no luck. A couple shots at Arc & 1 at SH for various items that didn't drop either (although the SH run that had me bubbled and slivered health at the end boss finish, alone, was exciting at least!).
For someone running a couple of instances a week.. that would mean months.. to hit those numbers. I can see how it would seem daunting for Far. Heck, I can run 10 a week and it will still take Sun a couple months to get those tanking numbers (which are probably more important to reach than DPS or healing).
In the end, I figure it's all about having fun with what time you are given. There are plenty of people willing to help at whatever pace people choose/have available.
4E D&D Campaign: Valley of Shrouds
Steam Community: ShadeRaven
This would make the difference between running with 3 or 4 healers, or running with 2 or 3 healers. An extra spot taken by a healer either means you have 1 less tank, or one less DPS. In fights like Curator and Illhoof, you need as much DPS as possible, since it's a race against the clock with instant death at the time limit. Granted, it would be possible to run under the gear reqs, and it's always better to run with 10 people versus 9.
The goal of this post is to get people to be as ready as possible, since as it stands right now, we are not able to take on content beyond Opera, period. Since our goal right now is to continue in the content, this really is what is needed to do it. Otherwise, we continue running the same 4 bosses over and over again and never go further.
Copingsaw wrote:
Super K - The "Anti-Wipe"
And like I stated, as it stands, gearing up to reach the numbers stated in this thread just isn't plausible for me in any kind of reasonable timeframe, which means I won't be able to rejoin you guys in Kara anymore even when I do have the time.
If your gear is currently as good as you can get it with the time you have. Don't worry about it. We're not going to exclude you from running Kara, but healing will be tougher on you until you get some upgrades. If you get a bunch of Kara gear, then the above numbers won't be an issue. In the meantime, it will probably mean you should bring more Pots with you and use consumables that increase your +healing and mana regen.
Copingsaw wrote:
Super K - The "Anti-Wipe"
4 healers is pretty much overkill in Kara at any point. You're better of going with 3 healers for everything Curator on. And realistically it's nice to have 3 healers for the early stuff too. Can you do the early bosses with 2 healers? Sure. But you might as well get 3 healers geared since that's pretty much the minimum number to have later on.
I have 4 healers on my raid roster and we try to cycle them through according to availability, but we never have more than 3 on one raid and we've occasionally dipped down to 2.
It's nice to have 2 tanks but they don't have to both be "Pure" tanks. Case in point, in our earlier runnings of Kara we had 2 Prot tanks in the raid...don't ever do that! When played correctly Prot tanks are great at holding aggro and mitigating damage but they are pure crap for damage. The same goes for 2 Prot Pallies. Most of the time your 2nd tank in Kara will alternate between DPS or Off-tanking depending on the fight. This makes feral druids or DPS warriors perfectly suited to the task. It also gives you an extra DPS class that can tank when needed.
I wouldn't worry about the time limit on those bosses you're talking about either. You need the 3 healers to keep the DPS that you DO have alive. 3 healers keeping 6/6 DPS alive is much better than 2 healers keeping 4/7 alive.
I wouldn't sweat major stat benchmarks Fars. Teamwork and consistency is far more important to raid success. Gear upgrades will come as you progress. The first 4 bosses all offer very good upgrades for healing. And those fights are driven by raid coordination far more than they are by raw stats. There's no doubt that these kind of base stats will make your raiding life easier, but the stats come as the gear drops. It just all takes time and patience.
I jumped in on a raid with Owned when they first came to the server. The coordination wasn't that great but the DPS was INCREDIBLE. Bosses were just getting their arses handed to them left and right. In that case you can sacrifice alot of coordination in lieu of monster stats (and monster DPS).
Later on you'll need both. Stats alone won't save you and if the raid hasn't built it's teamwork and coordination you'll get beat down everytime. Heck even after the stats and coordination are there you'll still get beat down regularly on some bosses! My last repair bill to the Prince was 44 gold. Bad luck on that fight will burn you everytime.
"Fault always lies in the same place...with those foolish enough to lay blame"*
-Cort
*Unless you're Amazon or Funcom, in which case, SCREW YOU.
You can't do a FULL Kara run with a full raid in green's a blues. It will never happen. If you are suggesting that a few of the raid members had some green's a blue's then, yes, agreed, that is no problem.
Fars, You seem to be taking this personally and you shouldn't. You will not be turned down for Kara runs because you are supposedly under-geared. You have been great in the runs you have been involved in.
Krindle is posting this information to help those who want to run the latter stages of Kara be better prepared. The fact of the matter is that parts of Kara requires better gear. We got burned on Curator not because we sucked as a team but because our gear simply wasn't good enough. There are those in the guild that want to beat curator etc. and are willing to invest the time to do so. To prepare for this, it is necessary to make sure that we have enough people adequately geared to do so.
If you are a little low on the +healing, consider some simple upgrades. Do you have +50 spellthread in your pants? If not, I will make it for you. Do you have the +80 on your weapon? If not, Troll can enchant. Are you addicted to fishsticks and the healing pots? There is another +75. Have you purchased the +healing shoulder buff from aldor/scryer rep? I think thats another +29. Are you socketed with all +18 healing gems?
Just some thoughts ...
Let me pipe in here as a side comment for the disheartened prot pallies.
I'm in a guild that has a clear bias against pally tanks. Probably due to inexperience. They all know that *I* (the person behind the toon) am a good tank, but I guess they generally don't trust my toon's abilities. That has since changed. But that's besides the point.
When I started running Kara with my guild, they wanted me to spec Holy. I told them to shove it and we pretty much left it at that. They recruited some holy pallies and left me in the dust. We have since recruited enough people to field a second Kara group and I decided to get more involved with it. The arrangement that seemed to work for me is that I'm playing an off-healer. It also helped that our main tank was an absolute beast with 20+k hp (I think he can hit 25k buffed up) and most Kara tanking gear already. When we started running Kara, I agreed to be an off-healer, but with an understanding that I'll be rolling on tanking gear when possible. By now, this augmented my crappy tanking gear to hit the above stats as mentioned by Zablocki. I also ended up rolling on all +healing gear that nobody else needed, so as a Prot pally, I actually meet the above requirements for healers too. My efficiency is not as good as Holy pallies, but I sure can help heal (+1100 healing, 90 mp5).
I think what I'm getting at is that if you have a hybrid class, play into all of its strengths. If you're prot pally, don't shy away from either being DPS or healing (same goes for druids and/or shammies). If necessary, come to Kara with 3 sets of gear. Every time. You will become a very valuable member of the group. Make sure people know what your expectations on gear are too. After all, it's supposed to be a bunch of friends running, so you can coordinate who gets what gear. It's in your mutual interest to gear everybody up to benefit the group most.
Also, don't forget you need plate only for tanking. Don't shy from putting on cloth +healing gear, or leather +attk gear. That is an absolute boon to you as a plate wearer. You can wear ANY other armour in the game (and almost any weapon, shield, off-hand item).
Overall though, agree with Zablocki's reqs. Especially for tanks. I can tank the beginning encounters fine with those requirements, but the slightest thing goes wrong and I'm toast. There is no room for mistakes or unlucky dice rolls. When it comes to casters, those should be average stats. Which means that if one of you is very well equiped, (s)he can pick up slack for those that do not meet the stats. But don't fool yourself. If you fill the group with people who meet above stats only, you're gonig to have a very hard time in later Kara.
Don't even dream of attempting 25 mans with those stats (unless you have bunch of people with stats 50% greater to pick up the slack). In Gruul's for example, one of your mages will have to tank a mage mini-boss. This mage will have to have 10-11k hp buffed. Your main tank needs at least 15k hp or he will get demolished by the King. Gruul on the other hand is a DPS fight on top of hitting like a truck. Every so often he grows. And pretty quickly his size becomes unmanageable.
I guess other 25 man instances have quirky requirements though. Tempest Keep requires arcane resists for example.
(@)
Thanks for clearing that up for me Deep and Cope.
Right now we've been having great success with a Pally/Druid combo for tanking and 3 healers. Typically Krindle MTs and Vilius OTs when we need it, and when we do encounters like Maiden, it's easier just to have Vilius tank it and Krindle switch to healing. We'll probably continue that method for quite a while until other tanks get geared up.
There are quite a few upgrades that just require you to be online for 10 minutes at a time like Cope suggested. Little enchants and inscriptions can make a big difference. Getting the right enchants can also make a difference, so use this as a guide and keep an eye open.
Copingsaw wrote:
Super K - The "Anti-Wipe"
I think I crossed over a bit into taking it a little personally, yes. The main thing is, I simply don't have sufficient opportunities to gear up until next summer. I suspect that by then, Kara won't really be what the guild's doing. So if I'm going to see Kara before the expansion hits, it'll be over the next months while I'm dealing with a restricted schedule.
That also means that I'll have to manage to participate while undergeared. So if I'm not able to join in while undergeared, then yeah, it's a huge disappointment for me. Krindle responded to that when he said that people won't be excluded just because of gear disparity (which is what I was trying to find out here; whether we were going to keep going the GWJ way or if we were migrating to more of a raiding guild mentality). Yes, there'll be runs that'll be for the fully-geared people, but there's no reason that the shrimpy guys can't take right field for a run, even if we're dealing with the tougher encounters.
Didn't know about the spellthread stuff; I thought that was for cloth armor. Troll enchanted my healing mace with the +80 (and any of the Kara healing weapon drops would be a massive upgrade for me). I'm totally addicted to fishsticks & healing pots, and do have that healing shoulder buff from Aldor rep.
I don't have much in the way of socketable healer gear yet though (mine is mostly dps/tank socketable gear from quests that had no healing gear available).
I've started doing more pvp when I'm around since there are some decent healer upgrades I can get from that, and that's something I can work on gradually and more plausibly than via the rare run I can get in on.
No, I'm not suggesting a few were. I'm suggesting they ALL were (discounting the drops in the run that week of course.)
Edit: Hmm.. I have to amend one thing, Nightbane wasn't done since no one could summon.
Unfortunately, if I slash my wrist with my lightsaber it cauterizes instantly. - PurEvil on emo Star Wars plots.
As long as each class is selecting the right blues/greens for their role in the raid and the team coordination is there it's totally possible. Better gear makes things easier but skill>gear has always been true.
"Fault always lies in the same place...with those foolish enough to lay blame"*
-Cort
*Unless you're Amazon or Funcom, in which case, SCREW YOU.
Absolutely gearing up will make it easier. I agree with that 100%. But you have to balance that with not burning people out trying to get in. A lot of the gear people can upgrade can be gotten off the first 4 bosses.
Unfortunately, if I slash my wrist with my lightsaber it cauterizes instantly. - PurEvil on emo Star Wars plots.
One thing did strike a cord in all of this.. the whole 2 Prot Paly statement above. I have to admit, that does have me worried. With Krin MT on every Kara run.. it means Sun will have to be OT with the ability to do Healing and DPS.. I am short on having tanking stats.. don't even ask what my Healing and DPS gear looks like.
Krin's already got everything covered and I'll never catch up to him.. and I can't imagine ever needing 2 MTs.
Moon, I will take your suggestions on equipment to heart, though. +Healing is pretty obvious when it comes to OT/Healing support. As OT/DPS, what do you suggest? Should I be looking for +SpDam & +MP5? What about +SpCrit? And you say cloth/leather/mail, etc., is fine.. but.. as a OT, aren't I still tanking to some degree? It makes me a bit nervous to think I might be taking shots wearing less than what I got already
On the bright side, I simply loving tanking through the 5-mans and look forward to when we have people coming up that I can run with that are pre-Kara. So Sunseeker is still an enjoyable toon.
4E D&D Campaign: Valley of Shrouds
Steam Community: ShadeRaven
Okay, now your just trolling. No guild has ever cleared Kara in their first week of trying wearing just blue's and greens.