Because Chess sucks ass.
Last night I soloed yet another raid all by my lonesome - what started out as a "I'm bored I'm gonna do Kara to see if the horse mount will drop" turned into a 2 hour solofest culminating in a near-full clear of Karazhan, a 10 man entry level BC raid.
I honestly expected it to be a lot harder - I recall going into Kara with a few level 70-80s back when we were Naxx geared and almost wiping on the Curator. We had a scrub level 70 paladin tank who was dying (and also had no threat generation whatsoever in the face of level 80 dps) and I ended up taking over and screaming "HEAL ME GODDAMNIT" as we downed him. But this time around I downed him in the blink of an eye with hardly a scratch.
The best part of the Karazhan solo was the sheer amount of netherweave cloth that dropped. I've been half-heartedly farming some heroic level BC instances to get enough cloth to level tailoring on my warlock alt, and only managing 3-4 stacks per run. Well by the time I had cleared the first half of kara, I had over 15 stacks. Later on in the instance I didn't get so much because the mobs weren't undead humanoids, but there was still a good amount of greens to shard (BC level chanting mats sell for quite a bit these days).
What almost stopped me from clearing Kara was the stupid Chess event. It's dumb, gimmicky mechanics like this that make soloing very difficult no matter what gear level you're at. Granted, when you're actually trying to clear the raid at the appropriate level I admit the gimmicky stuff can be fun, and is usually easy (ICC lootship anyone?). But when you're trying to do this stuff with a 1 person raid...it's a nightmare. Try soloing Malygos, no matter how badass your gear is. I dare you.
What really killed me was the 10 second debuff you get in between each chess piece move. I couldn't just hop in and out of pieces, I had to wait while my king stood in the fire or the alliance pieces were nuking down my healers. The strategy that finally worked for me was to move the pawns in front of the king out 1 space ASAP - this way when the "medivh cheat" occurs and fire drops on your king, you can quickly move him. I also moved the demons out near the king so that the AOE could nuke down the alliance king. In the end, it was a combination of luck and a little practice that finally got me through that stupid chess game.
I ended up skipping a couple nonessential bosses because, well, Karazhan is so freaking big and I had no idea they were even there. But I killed all the required bosses and got the achievement! The raid lockout resets today so I think I'm going to go for a full clear this week, including all the side bosses. It's totally worth it for the dusts, essences, cloth, rep, BoEs, and sheer bragging rights. "oh yeah, Kara's easysauce bro, I solo that shit every weekend..."
Though, should I really be bragging about how I spend every weekend playing wow? Hrrmmm...
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