Your first Karazhan part 4: The Iron Maiden

I think the name “Maiden of Virtue” is supposed to be “ironical”.

I mean, she’s not really that virtuous. First of all, she kills people. A lot. Last time I checked, that doesn’t tend to land in the “good deeds” pile.

Though on the other hand, each of us did slaughter thousands of people, animals, and monsters to get to the point where we could fight her…but I digress…

Second, she’s got, like, no clothes on.

Third, she is guarded by various seductresses and succubi who joke about demonophilia while whipping you:




In fact, considering that the hallway leading up to her is lined with lavishly-decorated bedrooms and populated by seductresses really seems to indicate one thing: she’s the mistress of this demonic brothel.

She’s a 3-story tall, stone-cold pimp.

But at the same time, considering that she’s roughly 30-feet tall and made of cold, unfeeling stone (actually, that reminds me of a date I had once…), it’s probably a safe bet that she’s a virginal maiden, as the mechanics of it being otherwise are a bit mind-bending. So there’s that. I guess one out of two ain’t bad.

Regardless of my speculation impugning her virtue, the maiden nevertheless uses mostly holy attacks, so be prepared to enjoy:

Consecration!

Retribution!

Stun!

Big Freakin’ Stone Fists! (OK, these aren’t exactly a holy ability, but they hurt no less for it.)

But before you can initiate a sado-masochistic relationship with her, you’ll have to fight through her stable of “escorts”. If you know what I mean.

Maiden Trash

After cleaning up Moroes, backtrack to the large staircase in the previous room. From there, your entire raid should stick together and hug the right wall. You should be able to sneak around the outer edge of the room to the corner, turn left, and make it to the small opening near the next corner without engaging more than a few ghosts. When you reach the door, it will be guarded by Phantom Valets who look just like other ghosts. But don’t be fooled: the valets will EAT YOUR TANK FOR LUNCH. They hit hard. Have your healers spam-heal your tank for the entire pull, and, for the love of god, do not pull aggro off the tank!

Next, head through the door and up the two flights of stairs to a large, open room full of ghosts. Your destination is the door along the right wall up ahead. Clear however many of the familiar ghost packs and single elite ghosts it takes to reach that door safely, but don’t just go barging in. There are patrols in the hallway on the other side of that door, so you’ll want to send your tank ahead to scout it out and signal the rest of you to follow when the coast is clear.

Pulling carefully in this hallway is key, as there are a number of patrols that can really ruin your day. Once through the door, your destination is to the right, down the wide stone hallway. There are bedrooms through doors along the left wall of the hall. Don’t bother fighting the enemies in those rooms. Instead, keep against the right wall (or risk aggroing the rooms) of the hallway as you move forward, killing only the groups in the hallway.

You may have a quest asking you to pick up a journal in one of these side rooms. Ignore it for now. Once your group has downed Maiden, simply wait ½ hour after everyone has left the tower and the instance will “soft reset”, despawning all of the trash that is linked to bosses you’ve already killed. At that point, you can waltz right up to the quest item completely unimpeded.



You’ll encounter two types of pulls. The first are armored guards who come in pairs, and summon spectral dogs to come to their aid. Try to keep the dogs off of your healers, but these pulls aren’t very dangerous. The really scary pulls are of the groups of what appear to be seductive human and high elf women. As it turns out, they are actually either ghosts or demonic succubi in disguise. Again, sounds like dates I’ve been on. They won’t transform until they start to get low on health, but still be prepared for them to bust out an aoe seduce and then start whipping your healers. Have a warlock banish the women labeled as “Demons” while your group shackles or traps the undeads.

Anything Special?

Warlock: Banish “demon” women

Priest: Shackle yo’self summa dem spooks


With hopefully little ado and not too much arousal, you’ll reach the end of the hallway, and be face-to-face (well, face-to-shin) with the lady who puts the “OW!” in bowing, the attitude in beatitude, the hurtyou in virtue…the Maiden!



The Maiden of Virtue

The Maiden is standing in a circular room, waiting on a central circular dais with little stairs leading up to it. The dais is surrounded by pillars.

The Maiden is like some sort of super-paladin. At all times, she will be dropping a consecrate-like effect called Holy Ground, which, aside from a few hundred damage every 3 seconds, will also silence anyone in range for 1 second. So obviously, you want casters to be out of the range of this if at all possible.

Her other paladin-on-crack move is called repentance, and like a retribution paladin’s repentance, it incapacitates a target. Unlike a regular paladin’s move, this one hits the entire raid (except for the tank), and does about 2000 damage to everyone. Oh, and it lasts twelve seconds.

She also has a few non-paladin moves to deal damage to accompany her formidable melee.

The first is Holy Fire, which hits one target for about 3500 fire damage, and ticks for nearly 2000 damage every 2 seconds after, for 12 seconds. It is absolutely imperative that you immediately dispel this every single time she casts it. Few of your raid members will survive that type of damage, especially if they are also standing in the aoe.

The second is Holy Wrath, a chain-lightning like spell that she will periodically cast on a random target. It will chain to anyone near the target, damaging them, so it is important that your raid spread out as much as possible to avoid this.

Taking these abilities into account, you’ll come up with a few guidelines:
-spread out.
-keep everyone’s health high.
-keep casters off the dais.
-dispel Holy Fire
-have some way to keep the tank alive during Repentance

You can enter the room without starting the fight, so the first thing you should do is arrange all casters and ranged dps around the outer edge of the room, like so:



Once the fight starts, they will all move forward and take a position between two pillars. They should all take different pillars to avoid standing too close together. You should also try to put a dispeller on each side of the room, so that no one is ever out of range to get Holy Fire removed.

Once everyone is in position against the wall, the tank should run in and start the fight, tanking Maiden in the center of the dais. Conveniently, Holy Ground only reaches to edge of the dais. Casters can remain out of range of the silence by standing at the edge of the dais, on the first step. Don’t stand too far back, or you may be out of your dispeller’s line of sight because of a pillar; get as close as you can.

Meanwhile, melee dps should spread out behind Maiden as much as possible to mitigate Holy Wrath damage. You might be surprised to find how far away from her you can stand and still hit her.

Dealing with Holy Fire:
Holy Fire is a magic effect, and can therefore be dispelled by:

-Priest’s Dispel Magic
-Paladin’s Cleanse and Divine Shield
-Felhound's Devour Magic (leave it on auto-cast)
-Mage’s Ice Block
-Rogue’s Cloak of Shadows

It can also be blocked by the Shaman’s Grounding Totem. Make sure you assign specific people to dispel specific targets. I’ve watched people die before because all of the dispellers thought Someone Else was going to dispel. I’d like to meet this Someone Else guy someday, and ask him why he never does anything he’s supposed to do.

Dealing with Repentence:
Obviously, if your healers aren’t healing for a full 12 seconds while incapacitated, your tank will probably die. There are many ways to deal with this. Use any combination of the following, depending on your group make-up, level of skill and gear, and your anal-ness:

-Paladins bubble out of the repentance, or leave blessing of sacrifice up on the tank when they think repentance is coming (damage the blessing redirects from the tank to the paladin will snap the paladin our of the effect)
-Keep a lot of heal-over-time spells up on the tank.
-Have the tank use cooldowns such as shield wall, potions, nightmare seeds, etc.
-Since the Holy Ground will break melee out of repentance quickly, melee dps that can heal can run out of the aoe and heal.
-Have the tank move Maiden toward a healer so Holy Ground damage will free the healer. Remember to move Maiden back into position afterwards. Similarly, a healer could just stand in the aoe in anticipation of an incoming repentance, though this method is risky.

Also, notice the handy Repentance countdown BigWigs puts on my screen:




Whew. That was complicated! But don’t worry, once you try it a few times, it will feel like second nature.

Anything Special?

Priest: Dispel Holy Fire immediately.

Paladin: Dispel Holy Fire immediately. Use bubble and blessing of sacrifice to break out of Repentance if needed. If retribution, cast some emergency heals during Repentance if needed.

Druid: Keep HoTs up on the tank. If feral, cast some emergency heals during Repentance if needed.

Warlock: Keep Felguard’s devour magic on autocast to dispel Holy Fire.

Mage: Ice Block out of Holy Fire if needed.

Rogue: Cloak of Shadows if you get Holy Fire for some reason. You should not be getting Holy Fire'd in melee range.

Shaman: Grounding Totem. Chain Heal melee. If Enhancement, cast some emergency heals during Repentance if needed.

Everyone: Keep as far away from others as possible, and healers keep everyone’s health topped off.


Once you’ve got the Maiden horizontal (not the first time she’s been there! Ba-dum-bum!) and had your hopes that the $&#* healing mace would finally #@*&ing drop thoroughly dashed, you can turn back around and head for an evening at the Opera.

Next: Lions, Tigers, and Bears. And Wolves. And Dogs. And Witches. And Robots. And Star-crossed Lovers.

Oh my!

Plus: Despite what your mother may have told you, running around in circles can save your life!