Karazhan Curator Abilities

small tactical guide on the Curator encounter in Karazhan.

Introduction:

Patrolling the Gallery, this giant mechanical machine provides a serious test to the complete synergy of the raid, and a gear check for the raids DPS. The encounter takes place when you pull the Curator on his patrol route in the gallery. You will need to clear out all trash in the room before engaging. Fighting him in the middle of the room is advised, giving your group enough space to spread out to handle the battle properly.

This fight requires a raid with high and stable DPS during a fairly long encounter. The fight will last a maximum of 12 minutes, but the sooner the raid kills the Curator, the better DPS they will have. The layout of the fight is designed to press DPS classes to their limits, maxing DPS with lasting power.

Its a very mana intensive battle for all mana based classes. So every class Evocation, the Curator will take 200% more damage from all any source of damage. It is vital the DPS throw in as much damage as they can during Evocations, since they will not have time to do so when Killing Astral Flares. Stocking up on DOTS right at start of Evocation is a good source of damage. And healers with this option should do so aswell.requires atleast a few mana potions to not go out of mana. Exceptions can happend for some classes, that have other ways of restoring mana. But for safety, it should be required to bring along some potions for each class for this encounter.

Abilities:

Berserk: After 12 minutes, the Curator will berserk and one shoot kill anyone, causing a wipe most likly.
Normal melee attack: Hits a well geared tank for 3000-4000 damage on a slow attack speed.
Evocation: After depletting his mana pool, the Curator will use Evocate to fully restore it. Channel time is 20 seconds. Damage done to Curator is increased by 200% during Evocation.
Enrage: When the Curator reaches 15% Health, he will enrage increasing standard melee damage alot, and fires "Hateful Bolts" more often.
Hateful Bolt: Fires a arcane bolt on the secondary aggro target. Deals 4000-5000 arcane damage.
Summon Astral Flare: Deplets 10% of the Curators mana each time one is summoned. 11000-13000 Hit Point adds with 100% arcane damage.

Hateful Bolt Mechanics:
The primary target for a hateful bolt is choicen from a number of checks from the Curator. The Tank on the Curator will never become a Hateful Bolt target, since the Curator has 2 aggro lists. One for normal aggro managment. And one for Hateful Bolt targeting. The person who is primary aggro target on normal attacks will not be choicen has Hateful Bolt target.

Hateful Bolt aggro is depended on a few things. First of all, it is the amount of life that is the prime factor of Hateful bolt. The more life a raid member has, the more likly he or she is to be targeted by a Hateful Bolt. But another factor that calculates in, is how much treat is being done to the Curator. The more treat done, the more likly that person will become the target of a Hateful Bolt. With the exeption of the primary aggro target.

The third and last thing that sets the Hateful Bolt target, is the distance to the Curator. The closer a person is, the more likly that person is going to be targeted by a Hateful Bolt. So there are 3 destinct factors that calculates which person will recieve a Hateful Bolt from the Curator.

Making sure as many of the 3 options are valid, on the person who will soak up Hateful Bolts, is a good safety for having a Hateful Bolt tank. Since the Hateful Bolts are pure arcane damage, having some arcane resistance will lower the damage alot and also a chance to resist them. The person who is to soak up Hateful Bolts should try to think of the following:

* Make sure you have the second or third highest life of the raid members. Or atleast higher then all healers.
* Stand relativly close to the Curator all the time. Make sure your standing closer then any healer all the time.
* You will need to apply treat to the Curator all the time, to make sure your high on the aggro list. Dont overaggro the Tank, but you should be second on aggro list.
* Equip some arcane resistance to lessen damage taken. Having around 200 Arcane resistance will allow you to resist 50% of the bolts.

Astral Flare handling:
The Curator will summon his first Astral Flare, 10 seconds after he has been engaged. During that time the raid should spread out and get ready. The Astral Flares will be summoned each 10 seconds until the Curators mana is depleted. Each Astral Flare, costs the Curator 10% mana. When he is out of mana, he will Evocate for 20 seconds until he has full mana once more. He will then start summon Astral Flares right away.

To handle Astral Flares, the raid will need fast focused fire on each Flare, as soon as they spawn. The goal is to kill the Flares before the next one spawns. Each DPS should be looking out for Flares all the time, and engage them as soon as possable. They will lock on to a random raid member when they spawn, and are very hard to tank. The DPS should not bother themself waiting for anyone to handle them. The Flares should be nuked and killed as fast as possable.

The Flares have quite alot of life if not all DPS focus fire on them. And they do pure arcane damage with a lightning attack in 10 yard range. The lightning can chain to up to 3 targets. The lightning damage is 675-825 arcane damage, so if the DPS is taking to much damage for healers to keep up, having a mage cast "Dampen Magic", or equiping arcane resistance gear, is a vialable option to lessen damage.

All ranged DPS should spread out to avoid geting hit more then once by a Astral Flare. Healers should try stick near walls to make sure they are out of the way from Flares. The Flares will as mentioned, lock onto random targets when they spawn. The DPS should be quick to nuke them, to draw them away from Healers or the Tank.