User:Kathucka/Hunter's Guide to Karazhan/The Bosses

Ah, finally we get to the meat of the matter. This section is probably the real reason that you are reading this guide. What should you, a hunter, do to fight each of the bosses?

We will get to that in a moment. Before we do, though, an entreaty for every hunter who skipped straight to this section without reading everything else:

In order the beat that boss, the very best thing you can do is to prepare properly. If you show up wearing green quest rewards and PvP gear (yes, even Gladiator stuff), A PvP or five-man spec, missing enchants, missing or low quality gems, no potions, or no flasks, you will be holding back your raid. It is more important to solve those problems than to learn strategies here for beating the boss. Here is what to do:


 * Get raiding gear and enchants.
 * Get raiding gems.
 * Get a raiding spec.
 * Get a raiding pet and spec it.
 * Set up addons, macros, and voice.
 * Bring full consumables.

Doing those things will do more for your raid than anything else. Got them taken care of? Good! Here is a list of the bosses in Karazhan, the recommended pet specs for each, and the loot they drop.

The rest of this page is full of hunter-specific tips on the individual fights. Read the regular WoWWiki pages for each fight, then read the hunter-specific stuff here.

Servants' Quarters
The three bosses in the Servant's are summoned by simply killing lots and lots of the trash there, and you can keep summoning them again and again so long as you keep killing the trash. The trash in this area provide the fastest way to get Violet Eye reputation.

Hunters can and should Freeze Trap all of the trash here.

Attumen himself is easy. This encounter is really a test to see if your raid can clear the trash in 25 minutes or less.

When fighting the trash, use Freeze Trap on the horses, and kill the humanoid undead first.

When Attumen spawns, use Misdirection to help his tank pick him up.

The minimum range on hunter shots was reduced from eight yards to six, while the minimum range on Attumen's Berserker Charge remained at eight yards. Therefore, in Phase Three, get as close as you can to Attumen while still being able to shoot. He won't be able to charge you.

The only danger for you on this fight is that you might pull aggro off of the tank and get killed. Watch the threat meter.

Moroes gives hunters a tremendous amount of useful work to do. Too bad he does not have more loot useful to hunters.

You can Freeze Trap any of Moroes' dinner guests. However, while you are monkeying around with the traps, you can't do as much damage to the kill target. Damage output is important in this fight, so that is a problem. A better tactic may be to pull your target into a trap, drop another trap nearby, then go all-out on the kill target. The target will run into the second trap as soon as the first trap breaks. Hopefully, the first kill target will be dead before the second trap breaks. At that point, the off-tank can pick up the trap target to be the new kill target.

The off-tank may have rage starvation issues, and be unable to build enough threat on Moroes. Use Misdirection to help.

Blow all of your cooldowns as soon as you attack your first kill target. There is no reason to save them, and a fast kill on the first target makes the rest of the fight a lot easier.

If a priest is maintaining Shackle Undead, drop a freezing trap on the priest (or near his target) to catch the mob if it gets loose unexpectedly.

Your pet can off-tank one of the dinner guests if it gets attention from the healers, especially if it is specced for armor.

All you can do on this fight is stand in your assigned spot, shoot, and mend your pet. Do that, and use Misdirection to help with tank threat.

You can trap all of the the Maiden's trash. Use your pet to off-tank the dogs that some of the trash summon.

Opera Event
The Opera event has some really, really good loot. Don't miss it. In any particular week, you will randomly get The Big Bad Wolf, Romulo and Julianne, or The Wizard of Oz. This section just discusses the trash (which is the same every week).

The s are nasty. On the two-Usher pulls, use Misdirection to help the tanks make sure that both tanks have threat on on both Ushers.

Drop Snake Traps on the s and s, so they have a chance to waste their Bad Poetry and Mallet Toss spells on the snakes.

Feign death and stay down when you turn into Little Red Riding Hood. Stand up when the debuff wears off.

The tank cannot maintain threat well while the Wolf chases Red. Be careful not to go over the tank on threat.

As a ranged damage-dealer, you will be on Romulo most of the time. Switch back and forth between Romulo and Julianne to whoever has the highest health. This will help ensure that they go down at the same time.

Romulo may hit your pet.

You can use Scare Beast to help keep Roar feared.

Your pet can off-tank Tito, but it has to get outside heals. This works better if your pet is specced for armor.

Here it is! This fight is your big test as a hunter. It's time to put out the real damage, or the raid will fail. Kill the Flares, kill the Flares, kill the Flares!

Absolutely spec your pet for Arcane Resistance for this fight. It will easily stay alive if you do.

Your job will be much easier if your raid uses the concentrated positioning. The main tank faces The Curator away from the raid. Everyone but the hunters bunches up right behind it. Hunters get up as close as they can without blowing their minimum range. Do this, and you will have an easy time targeting and attacking the Flares without them getting too close, too far, or behind you. It makes things easier on the melee damage-dealers too. Casters, especially healers, hate it, though, because of casting pushback. Even so, it is worth doing, because the Flares die so much more quickly.

Use the Curator targeting macro on this fight to select a live Astral Flare. Success on this fight is, in large part, dependent on how fast you can pick up your next target. Sad, but true.

Put your pet on aggressive, and take Growl off of auto-cast. When a Flare appears, target it and manually hit it with Growl as you open fire. With buffs like Blessing of Might and Battle Shout, your pet will generate enough threat with one Growl to hold the Flare still until it is almost dead.

If a Flare goes after you, wait a moment for someone else to hit it, then Feign Death. If it is still after you, run into the melee group and fight there until the Flare is dead, then run back out to position.

Save your cooldowns until the ninth Flare is almost dead, then blow them all to kill the tenth one as fast as possible and get to work on The Curator during Evocation.

The Curator is immune to Arcane Shot, Hunter's Mark, and your stings. The Flares are not, but it is usually better to use Steady Shot on them instead of the other abilities, since the Flares need to die so quickly.

On the undead trash after the Opera house (near the back door): use Arcane Shot to dispel the self-buffs

On the Arcane Guardians right before The Menagerie, use Misdirection to help the off-tank grab his target.

On the Arcane Anomaly and Syphoner trash in the Menagerie, drop a snake trap at the doorway to small round room. The snakes will do a good bit of damage and may distract the Syphoners from your casters.

A special note about The Curator: There are other strategies that work on The Curator. You will absolutely hear about them. Some people may vehemently object to the "bunch up" strategy above. The thing to remember is this: All strategies work on The Curator, so long as you have enough damage on the Flares.  The strategy above maximizes damage on the Flares. Therefore, it is the best one for new raids that have only barely enough damage output for this fight. Because the Flares die more quickly, it also means that the raid requires less healing. If your raid wants to do the fight a different way, that is fine, just so long as the Flares die quickly enough. On the other hand, if you start to get multiple Flares up at the same time, your raid may benefit from the strategy mentioned above.

Threat is not an issue in this fight. Go all-out.

You will not move when Flame Wreath is cast, or the raid blows up.

Speccing your pet for Arcane and Frost resistance really helps it survive Arcane Explosion, Frost Bolts, Blizzard, and Arcane Missiles.

Turn off auto-cast for Dash/Dive. When the Shade starts to cast Arcane Explosion, turn on auto-run to move to the outside edge of the room. Put your pet on passive and hit Dash/Dive manually to get it to hurry up.

If healing or healer mana is an issue, drop Snake Traps as often as you can. The Shade will frequently waste his nukes on the snakes.

If your pet is specced for Frost Resistance, it can tank the water elementals. It will quickly die to them otherwise.

The hardest part about this fight is learning to spot the blizzard and stay out of it. If you are not sure exactly where the Blizzard is, run in and melee the Shade while you look around. Run back out once you have it figured out.

Blow all your cooldowns right after the first Flame Wreath or Arcane Explosion. You don't want to have your short-term buffs up while you are running around to avoid a Blizzard.

Your pet does not trigger Flame Wreath. Keep it on the Shade for the whole fight, except....

With arcane resistance, your pet may resist the polymorph. Make sure that it stops attacking the Shade until after they pyroblast, or it may trigger an early pyroblast.

The Mana Warp trash on the way to Shade of Aran can be controlled with a Freeze Trap. They explode and hurt the raid a lot when they die. Use Intimidation as they are about to die to stop them from exploding.

Use the Illhoof targeting macro for this fight to get the best target.

Your pet can tank. If it is specced for armor, it will not need many outside heals.

Save the cooldowns on Multi Shot and Arcane Shot when the Sacrifice is due to happen soon. When it does happen, use those skills to get a quick burst of damage on the Demon Chains.

Expect to take the blue beam for 20 seconds. Blow all your cooldowns when you do. You will pump out a huge amount of damage.

You can also take the red beam for 20 seconds. You cannot dance in and out of the beam to take it for a whole phase, like tanks can.

If you touch the green beam briefly, it will refill your mana. Do this only in emergencies, and make sure that you let the normal green tank know what you are doing. Make sure that you get out again immediately.

Your pet does not get hit by the shadow damage aura or the Netherbreath, but it needs to stay out of the void zones. Also, pull it out during the banish phase entirely, as Netherspite might decide to attack it.

Chess Event
All classes are the same here. You might want to take a bishop piece, so that you can heal, for a change.

You are doing ranged damage, so watch out for the Charred Earth. It helps a lot to turn the spell detail graphics setting all the way up.

Drop a Frost Trap when Nightbane takes off. This will snare the skeletons so the tank can pick them up more easily.

Your pet will get stuck in Charred Earth a lot. Charred Earth did physical damage prior to patch 2.4.2, but now does fire damage. The pet can stay in quite a while if it is specced for Avoidance and Fire Resistance, but you will eventually have to pull it out and heal it.

You can shoot Nightbane while he is in the air! This will bring Smoking Blast down on you. This is not entirely a bad thing, as you are wearing mail armor and you are not a healer. However, you still have to kill the skeletons, so this might not be a a good idea.

If a skeleton gets loose from the tanks, pick it up with your pet before it kills a healer. Your pet will need heals if it is required to off-tank for long, even if it is specced for armor.

Nightbane resets his threat when he lands. Use Misdirection to help the tank pick him up.

This is a long fight. Be ready to chug mana potions.

Here is the other fight where your damage output is really important to the raid's fortunes. Give this one everything you can!

Speccing your pet for fire and shadow resistance really helps.

Watch your threat carefully! If you pull aggro, it is probably a wipe.

Turn on Track Demons to help spot the infernals.

Your pet will not get Enfeeble. Leave it in for Shadow Nova. It is easy to heal through, especially with Avoidance and shadow resistance.