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July 23, 2007, 06:34 PM

#1 (permalink)

Akasha

[Karazhan] The Curator

The Curator

The Curator is an Arcane Guardian boss in the Menagerie in Karazhan. It is not optional, groups which want to reach the bosses behind it must first defeat the Curator.



Type
660,000 Health, ?? Mana
Abilities: Summon Astral Flare - The Curator will spawn one Astral Flare every 10 seconds. This ability costs 10% of the Curator's mana. The flares have approximately 12,000 Hit Points and attack using Arcing Sear and dealing arcane damage to up to 3 players in melee range every second. Everyone needs to be spread out to avoid this damage. The flares deal only Arcane damage and obey threat rules, but are immune to taunt.
Hateful Bolt - The Curator occasionally targets the second person on his aggro list with an arcane bolt that hits for approximately 4500 to 6000 Arcane damage. This ability is both fully and partially resistible.
Evocation - Upon exhausting its mana pool by summoning one last astral flare, the Curator will channel evocation for 20 seconds. During this evocation all damage taken is increased by 200%. The Curator will not attack or summon flares during this spell. The list of "prime" targets for Hateful Bolts is reset at this time.
Enrage - At 15%, it will enrage. This largely increases melee damage output and rate at which Hateful Bolts are cast. It will not summon Astral Flares or use evocation during this time.
Berserk - If the Curator is not killed within 12 minutes, it will go berserk and end your raid quickly.

Tactics:
(Courtesy of Wowwiki.com until Hestocklem writes his version. Further enhancements will be taken from your replies.)

During the fight, the Curator summons an add every 10 seconds until it's out of mana, and then recharges with an Evocation. Since each add costs 10% of its mana this means that there are 10 adds between Evocations. During the Evocations it deals no damage, resets the bolt target list (but not the aggro table,) and will take 200% damage from all attacks.

The first priority in the fight is to get the adds under control. The main damage to the boss is done during Evocations. It is perfectly OK to focus on killing the adds as they are summoned, and damage the curator only during the Evocation phases. The Curator can also be attacked outside an Evocation, but only if the current flare is dead, and the party must be ready to immediately pick up the next one summoned.

Only one tank is needed on the Curator. Aggro is a non-issue, because there is ample time between Evocations for the tank to build aggro.

Flares

When the Flares are summoned they start with 1000-2000 threat on a random raid member. This makes them rather hard to control, as they also cannot be taunted. There are basically two methods to set up the raid:

Distributed, with preferably 10 yards or more between raid members. This will significantly reduce the damage done by the chain lightnings, but at the same time make the job of the flare tank harder, and decrease melee DPS.
Set up concentrated in one spot. In that case, the adds will all follow the same path, which helps the melee classes and the flare tank. The disadvantage is that this setup will also maximize the damage from the chain lightnings.

The 10th add of each round (which is summoned right before an Evocation) should be killed as fast as possible by all DPS in order to minimize the damage that it does. When it is dead, DPS switch as fast as possible to the Curator. If people are slow at switching targets, it is possible to have some DPS switch to the curator after the 9th add, and have only some (maybe just one) damage dealer kill the 10th add. However it must be made sure that the add is dead before the Evocation is over.

Independent of the setup, it is a good idea to designate a "flare tank", who tries to immediately pick up the adds and kite them away from the rest of the party, thus minimizing the damage taken from the chain lightning.

Evocation

Damage dealers should maximize their DPS output by all means during these phases. Some tips:

Save trinkets and all other single-use DPS increasing effects for use during Evocations.
Even holy Priests should DPS if their mana permits.
Priests should use their Shadowfiend during an Evocation, since the amount of mana gained from this ability will be increased by 200%.
Warlocks should precision-cast (between the 4th and 5th add) Curse of Doom so that it will go off during an Evocation. Keep an eye on threat though, as it deals a lot of damage (24k is not unusual).
Shamans should save Bloodlust or Heroism until right before an Evocation, don't use Tranquil Air (some DPS totem instead).
Paladin blessings should be optimized for mana or DPS, don't use Salvation.
If mana permits, all Paladins should blow Avenging Wrath and melee curator during evocation.

Hateful Bolts

The method of targeting for Hateful Bolts remains somewhat contentious. The original lore was that the hateful bolts hit the raid member with the highest current HP which is not the tank. This seems to be false, because it can be verified that hateful bolt targeting is not based on health alone. It seems the Curator maintains a second aggro list (the "prime" list), which is maintained like the main list, with the difference that resets on each evocation. Hateful Bolts are targeted at the second entry in the prime list. In consequence, even with a dedicated bolt tank, it may be possible for a DPS class to become the hateful bolt target after a particularly damaging Evocation. Finally, it appears that the Curator will remove people temporarily from its "prime" list if their health falls below a certain percentage.

In consequence, the bolt tank must be kept at nearly full HP at all times. One good method to enforce bolt soaker status is to keep him on the curator, and not on the adds (but beware not to steal agro from the main tank).

Due to their usually high Stamina and their self-buff Fel Armor (which increases healing received by 20%), Warlocks are good Hateful Bolt soakers. One HoT from a well-equipped Resto Druid can be enough to keep a Warlock at full health, even if the Warlock has low arcane resistance.
A shadow priest also makes a good soaker due to his abilities Vampiric Embrace. Any class with high HP (and perhaps a healing ability) can be a good bolt soaker, about 200 arcane resistance make the job easier in all cases.

Arcane Resistance

Opinions vary on the use of Arcane Resistance gear for this fight. Although there is a time limit to completing the fight, even low-DPS groups should be able to make it in 12 minutes, usually wipes occur earlier because the healers run out of mana. If the raid uses a Hateful Bolt soaker, that person should have around 200 AR. All others should not gimp themselves, AR is only needed if the healers find themselves unable to keep everyone up. If a melee class is used to tank the flares, they should also wear about 200 AR. With around 210 AR, the lightnings from the flares will hit for around 300, with a few 500 hits, and a few full resists.

Mana Draining

The Curator is immune to all kinds of mana drain effects.

Our Role:
Using Curse of Doom at the one minute point before an Evocation can make a large dent in The Curator's health. Use a timer mod or have the tank call out when Curator is at 60% mana. If all else fails, count flares... use Curse of Doom after the 4th flare has appeared. If you time your curse to finish at the very beginning of Evocation, you can throw up Curse of Shadow for the next 50 seconds or so to help your shadow priest.

Kill Movies:
Looking for a good quality kill movie - please post link below if you know of one. (Must be youtube.com to be able to imbed it)

Loot:
To see all drops, please click here.

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July 23, 2007, 11:06 PM	#2 (permalink)
Cynic Character Info Banatu 80 Blood Elf Rogue Kel'Thuzad US PvP Guild: Massacre Profile: Blizzard Armory	Re: [Karazhan] The Curator Something I've always wondered, and no two strats seem to agree with themselves on this.. is the damage during evocated doubled (read as: Curator takes 200% damage) or tripled? (read as: Curator takes 200% additional damage) So.. which is it? =D __________________ I'd mana tap that.

July 24, 2007, 03:55 AM

#3 (permalink)

pyroglyphix

Status: Mostly harmless

Character Info
Glyffix
80 Undead Warlock
Dunemaul US PvP
Guild: Brauheist
Profile: Blizzard Armory

Re: [Karazhan] The Curator

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynic

Something I've always wondered, and no two strats seem to agree with themselves on this.. is the damage during evocated doubled (read as: Curator takes 200% damage) or tripled? (read as: Curator takes 200% additional damage)

So.. which is it? =D

Tripled.

Death Coil during Evocation can be nice too.

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July 24, 2007, 04:04 AM	#4 (permalink)
cdubaldo Character Info latifa 70 Undead Warlock arak arahm Euro PvP Guild: Escape Profile: Blizzard Armory	Re: [Karazhan] The Curator I see. That would explain how you can have a CoD hit for 40-50k damage on that boss... I thought that the damage was "just" doubled and therefore couldn't see how CoD could have that amount of damage. Regarding our role in this fight an on top of the CoD strategy: 1/ As warlocks, we might have to play the role of the "soaker" so some arcane resistance could be handy in that case. 2/ Shadowburning the adds is very efficient to help take them down in the quickest way if you have that destruction talent. Be aware however that you won't get a shard back even if the mob dies within 5 seconds of the shadowburn (which it should). 3/ Killing the adds should remain the top priority but as warlocks, we should also renew dots on the boss even when his not evocating. Last edited by cdubaldo; July 24, 2007 at 04:10 AM..

July 24, 2007, 08:08 AM	#5 (permalink)
Debuff Character Info Debuff 80 Orc Warlock Sargeras US PvP Guild: Fenrir Profile: Blizzard Armory	Re: [Karazhan] The Curator If you are affliction, it is worth your while to cast UA, Immo, and corr at the beginning of the evocation. They will least the entire evo and cut out just before the end so the tank can establish aggro easier. Also, I would recommend not blowing your trinkets on the CoD, save them for the evo phase itsself.

July 24, 2007, 10:08 AM	#6 (permalink)
Kiralyn Character Info Kiralyn 80 Human Warlock Mal'Ganis US PvP Guild: Self Titled Profile: Blizzard Armory	Re: [Karazhan] The Curator Curator * Tank - Beat on Curator. That is all. * DPS - Focus on the adds FIRST. Yes, even during an Evocate. Warlocks, 55 seconds. * Healers - Watch your melee DPS, as they take a lot of damage from the adds. Also, watch your hateful bolt eater. * General - Burn hard during the last (3rd) evocate. Adds will despawn as soon as he enrages. ------------ These are the cliff notes I have written up on my guild's site. It's as short a recap as possible on peoples jobs, and makes for a good raid leader reference, and review before the fight for the raid. __________________ Hell, it's about time. -Tychus Findlaw

July 24, 2007, 12:38 PM	#7 (permalink)
Debuff Character Info Debuff 80 Orc Warlock Sargeras US PvP Guild: Fenrir Profile: Blizzard Armory	Re: [Karazhan] The Curator I like your notes kiralyn, the last one though (* General - Burn hard during the last (3rd) evocate. Adds will despawn as soon as he enrages.) might be situational to your guild specifically, though. You ideally want to dps as fast as possible as early as possible. It is entirely possible to down him before the third evocate. I've even seen a video of him downed before the end of the first evocation phase. This fight is similar to ragnaros in that stacking as much dps as possible really eclipses the roles of the other classes. Psycho dps beats good healers and tanks in this fight. Pop the trinkets and go to town on the first evocation so you can get the fight over asap. Also, my guild usually leaves the last spark before an evocation alive. As soon as he summons the 10th spark he goes into the evocation. So rather than spend 5-6 seconds with all dps on the sparks and losing out on precious evocation time, we simply let the spark live until the end of the evocation and we quickly dps that spark and the new one down. It tends to make he fight shorter although a little more stress on the healers. Last edited by Debuff; July 24, 2007 at 12:41 PM.. Reason: horrid spelling

July 24, 2007, 12:56 PM	#8 (permalink)
Malboro Character Info Malbabo 80 Gnome Warlock Sen´Jin US PvE	Re: [Karazhan] The Curator On my guild raids, im the bolt soaker. I have 410 arcane resistance and what i do is: Cast curse of shadows on Curator (keep him as my focus target) Send a few shadowbolts to gain agro (only at start of the fight. After the evocation, im always second on agro list due to CoD) Assist on adds with a shadowbolt, Death coil or drain life if needed (rarelly) Cast CoD on [target=focus] when his mana is at 50% This makes me the bolt soaker for all the fight. I help on adds and since im closer to the curator when the flares show up, every flare hits me at least once. With my high AR, i absorve the damage, saving healers mana. What ill try next time is spam seed of corruption on the curator. The blast will hit the flares making me the bolt and flare offtank (i will report when tested). With that many AR, it took over 1 minutes for me to die once (when our flare OT got D/C once and we wanted to wipe), when being targeted by 5+ flares.

July 24, 2007, 01:10 PM

#9 (permalink)

Pufflehill

Character Info
Pufflehill
70 Gnome Warlock
Thunderlord US PvP
Guild: Motley Fools

Re: [Karazhan] The Curator

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kiralyn

Curator

* Tank - Beat on Curator. That is all.
* DPS - Focus on the adds FIRST. Yes, even during an Evocate. Warlocks, 55 seconds.
* Healers - Watch your melee DPS, as they take a lot of damage from the adds. Also, watch your hateful bolt eater.
* General - Burn hard during the last (3rd) evocate. Adds will despawn as soon as he enrages.

------------
These are the cliff notes I have written up on my guild's site. It's as short a recap as possible on peoples jobs, and makes for a good raid leader reference, and review before the fight for the raid.

For us, we did follow your strategy for awhile, but it's been slightly modified now. We have a dps warrior/druid off tank the 10th add during the evocate. They can single-handedly kill the flare while the entire raid can concentrate on the Curator for the entire Evocate. We also normally get the Curator down right after the second evocate. That's probably a function of us getting better gear for the most part.

You can see the stats from our runs here:

http://www.warcraftfools.org/wws/wws-history/

We have a few raid ids, so the dps output can vary between them, but tanking the 10th add has really worked well for us.

Puff

August 06, 2007, 02:42 AM

#10 (permalink)

Akasha

Re: [Karazhan] The Curator

A huge thankyou to Minidevil of the guild White Eagles (server unsure) for shooting me through an email and letting me know of their youtube.com videos of Karazhan bosses! I'm always interested in the fights from a Warlock's perspective!

Quote:

There normally of our 1st or 2nd downs so not the best of kills, but each are from my point of view (full aff lock) and arnt to bad.

__________________

Whether you're a forum expert, newbie or just want a good laugh...
Everyone can learn something from : Posting And You...

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