Past Achievements Revisited, Onyxia's Lair and Karazhan

Due to the requests of our users, we have added yet another article on level 60 and 70 raid-zones, including what's feasible, and what's not, with a 2-man Team. In our case, a Death Knight and a Holy Priest.

In this latest article, we go over two other instances that may be of interest to people wishing to obtain some achievements. The first one being Onyxia's Lair, and the subsequent one being Karazhan. As one can imagine, the difficulty level from a level 60 raid zone to a level 70 raid zone varies tremendously, yet our team did its best effort to prevail and document our adventure through 'old' content.

Level 60 Raid Zone ~ Onyxia's Lair

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Engaging the Black Dragon, Onyxia

Onyxia's Lair is arguably one of the funnest level 60 encounters, since it doesn't have a lot of trash in it and it's a very varied encounter. Many people have attempted killing her with less and less people, and have been reducing their numbers to 2 or 1 even in the latest Burning Crusade expansion. However, only Druids and Paladins decked out in Sunwell/Black Temple gear were able to down this monster alone, and few were able to duo her due to the fact the encounter has a lot of very different mechanics.

As Tentondk, our Death Knight, headed down to Onyxia's Lair, his Priest companion already soloed all but one of the Onyxian Warders needed to get to Onyxia herself. As a Holy Priest, she ran into no trouble defeating the Warders provided she had time to drink after every fight. Back in the day, you used to need over 20 people to fight these off without casualties!

The setup for this encounter was:

- Unholy-Specced Death Knight in Frost Presence. 1 Ghoul out.

- Holy-Specced Priest

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Onyxia put up a lot of resistance, but couldn't stand against a Death Knight and a Healer combination

Pulling

Onyxia was pulled and tanked in the bottom center of her cave as usual. The Ghoul was smart enough to jump behind her and begin attacking her from behind, which let him avoid any and all cleaves and letting him survive effortlessly past Phase 1! The damage output Onyxia had with all the Death Knight bells and whistles was minimal during phase 1, as most of her attacks were either parried or simply did less than 700 damage.

What was noticed was that the damage output wasn't terrible from the Death Knight's abilities, but could be enhanced further to speed up phase 1. To accomplish this, Army of the Dead was used and had 5 more ghouls hitting her altogether. This quickly brought her down enough health for her to take flight and leave all our ghouls hanging.

Phase 2 ~ Flight

Phase 2 began and Onyxia spawned her usual whelps to take care of us while she dropped fireballs on either of us. My ghoul didn't quite care about any Whelps and stayed on Onyxia the whole time, bringing her health down while I took care of the whelps with Death&Decay, Pestilence, and Corpse Explosion.

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Onyxia's Loot! Also note the Achievement!

Phase 3 ~ Landing

Upon Onyxia's inevitable descent down to below 30% health, she landed and immediately focused on my ghoul, which did most of the damage during phase 2. The ghoul died, but that let me regain aggro on her and bring her back to her spot.

A few talents shined here, for instance, On a Pale Horse. Duration of Fear and Stun effects was reduced thanks to the Talent, and I was running in place most of the time, and not even long enough to interrupt my DPS rotation on Onyxia. Bone Shield, Icebound Fortitude and Horn of Winter were also great help when dealing with Onyxia and her scattered whelps that were still living upon the start of Phase 3.

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As numerous as Karazhan's trash can be, a good tank and healer at 80 will make short work of them.

Before long, the mighty dragon Onyxia fell to our might, and we unlocked the Onyxia's Lair achievement! This is just one of the many you will have to complete in the old world before gaining the 'Classic Raider' Achievement.

Level 70 Raid Zone ~ Karazhan

At popular request, our next target was Karazhan. This being a higher profile zone, we didn't expect to get very far with just two people, but we were pleasantly surprised at our progress!

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Attumen the Huntsman, a long yet doable fight

Initial pulls in the Stables proved to be no problem for the Death Knight to tank all at once, and not even 4-5 monster pulls were an issue. With enough AoE damage from Unholy Blight, Corpse Explosion, Death&Decay, and Pestilence, all the monsters stayed on the Death Knight and never really killed him.

Boss ~ Attumen the Huntsman / Midnight

Attumen and Midnight were another token altogether. While the fight wasn't exactly hard, the sheer amount of time needed to kill both Midnight and Attumen was grating and exceeded over 15 minutes. Not only that, Attumen lost interest in the Death Knight through AoE and had to be taunted several times off of the healer.

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Moroes was a dead end to our group.

Upon Attumen's defeat, we headed up to where Moroes hangs out. This would be the most challenging fight yet, as 4 level 70 adds and Moroes could prove a problem against only 2 people, even if level 80.

Boss ~ Moroes

Getting to Moroes was easy as ever, the usual AoE effects made short work of any enemy in the way. However, Moroes was another story.

Upon pulling Moroes he immediately went for the healer, and even if the Death Knight kept hate on him, the damage output was way too low to be of any use. Even worse, the healer enemy would heal incessantly and would refuse many interrupts, so eventually, Moroes would gouge and it would be all over for the party.

Not even an Army of the Dead kept them long enough to do any sort of damage. As far as we're concerned, Moroes with 2 people, and him having Shadowpriest (Manaburn) and Healer is pretty much a big gamble of a fight.

Defeated, our group decided it was time to call it at the 7th wipe. Karazhan is definitely doable with 3 people, especially if it's 2 DPS classes (and one that can tank!), Moroes was one of the tougher fights for 2 players, yet others give some additional problems like the Opera Events with Romulo and Julianne, or any of the fights that require you to entertain more than 2 monsters at once.

In closing, there is a lot to be done if you want to complete old instances at level 80, and they're definitely accessible with lower amounts of people than they were originally intended. Perhaps in the future, we'll document adventures through Blackwing Lair or Ahn'Qiraj, and our group makeups.

Make sure to express your comments or experiences with similar setups in our forums. Are you looking forward to going back and fighting old bosses in Wrath of the Lich King for your Achievements? Let us know!


Comments or questions? Email us ([email protected]) or post on our forums!

Disclaimer: The opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints of the Ten Ton Hammer network or staff.


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Last Updated: Mar 29, 2016

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